


Atë

by Winddrag0n



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Amputation, Animal? Attacks, Biting, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Ocean, Bottom Will, Branding, Cannibalism, Creampie, Dark Will, Decapitation, Dinner Party, Exsanguination, Festivals, Flirting, Floriography, Flowers, Gardens & Gardening, Golden Gore, Gore, Hannibal Lecter is Not a Cannibal, Head Stomping, M/M, Organ Crushing, Organ Removal, Roses, Rough Sex, Self-Flagellation, Skinning, Special Fish, Switching (mentioned), Table Sex, Top Hannibal, Unsafe Sex, Viscera, Wendigo, art gallery, best friend Beverly, mauling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-10-28 10:10:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 50,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20776847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winddrag0n/pseuds/Winddrag0n
Summary: The FBI are after a serial killer who preys on online celebrities, and their investigation leads them to renowned floriculturist Hannibal Lecter, who seems more interested with one of the investigators than helping with the case itself. With a shared interest in gardening, Will finds himself drawn to the strange man, and can't seem to muster the desire to rebuff any of his advances. At the same time, Will finds himself falling deeper and deeper into this new killer's mind, and starts having dark fantasies of his own. Things come to a head when it is discovered the killer they're hunting might not be so new after all, and he's trying to send someone a message.





	1. Love At First Sight

**Author's Note:**

> This is a completed work! I will be uploading the chapters daily until it's all finished. I had never set out to intentionally write gore before, so I'm a bit worried it isn't gory enough, but the plot also grew legs and the whole thing spiraled into something far longer than I intended it to be so I'm not really sure what to make of it at all at this point. It was fun to write though! General tags are for the entire fic, while gore will be updated as I add chapters.
> 
> A quick note to get this out of the way; this involves internet culture/drama as a plot device, and none of the people involved are based on any actual figures. It is also in no way meant to be realistic, or any sort of commentary on the general state of the internet.

Will was becoming accustomed to being woken by the shrill ringing of his cell phone at every possible hour of the night, but that didn’t mean he was any less aggravated by it. He rolled over, slapping uselessly at the table beside his bed until the foul item in question met the tips of his fingers. “Will Graham,” he answered with a grunt, wondering why he even bothered when he already knew who was on the other end of the line.

“There’s another body,” Jack rushed out in lieu of a proper greeting. Will sighed.

“Where?” More awake now, he flicked on the lamp beside him and scooped up the pen and paper he kept beside his phone for this very reason. His memory was good, incredible even, but the confusing fog of sleep did not discriminate and he didn’t want to take any chances. Jack rattled off the address and he copied it onto the paper quickly. “I can be there in an hour,” Will promised before hanging up; it was nearby, thankfully.

Later, in the shower, he realized he had essentially thanked their newest serial killer for keeping it local this time around and shook the thought out of his head, water droplets flying from his curls.

When he pulled up to the crime scene and was greeted by Jack, Will took a measure of sadistic delight in the fact that his boss looked just as tired as he personally felt. “It’s definitely the same guy,” he grumbled, pulling his thick coat around himself tightly. The sun had not yet risen, the forensics team doing most of their preliminary work by flashlight. Apparently they had decided there was no evidence at risk of being melted away, as Will spied a spotlight set up in the distance, presumably illuminating the actual body.

“But you want me to check anyways,” Will clarified, locking his car behind him.

Jack shot him a look. “You know, at this point, you’re also an accomplished forensics scientist who’s familiar with the case.” He gestured into the woods, and Will followed.

“You wouldn’t have called me out here at three in the morning to do rote forensics work,” Will pointed out, and Jack did not respond. 

“Clear it out!” Jack bellowed, before they had even reached the scene itself. His voice carried far and techs scattered away from the scene like startled ants. Will locked eyes with Beverly as she walked past, and she waved to him in greeting. He nodded before turning his attention back to Jack, who was pointing towards a break in the tightly clustered trees. “It’s through there. I’ll be out here when you’re finished.” Once more, Will nodded, and stepped fully into the crime scene.

Maybe, if he had scene this years ago, or even at the beginning of the case, what stood before him would have shocked him. A full-sized cross was hammered into the ground and a body was crucified upon it, complete with hammers through the feet and hands and a crown of thorns upon his head. His throat was slit, and blood cascaded down his body, soaking into the dirt at his feet.

Will closed his eyes. The pendulum swung once, and he knew this would be quick.

_ He’s watching me assemble the cross, wants to beg for his life, but he’s gagged and cannot. The crown already sits atop his head, digging into his skin, sending small rivulets of blood down his face. The cuts worsen as he thrashes. Once it’s finished, I tie the rope around his middle, use the cross as an anchor to pull him up to the proper height before driving the nails through his hands. Once his upper body is secured, I remove the rope, let him hang for a while, feel a taste of the suffering he’s inflicted on others. After, I nail the feet, satisfied with the distribution of weight. It won’t hold forever, but it will hold long enough. I wish to leave him like this, let him die slowly, but the body will be found before that happens so I simply slit his throat and leave him to bleed out, alone. _

_ If he thinks himself similar to God, I will grant his wish, and elevate him. _

Will’s eyes snapped open. The whole thing was pretty heavy-handed for their killer, but it was unmistakably the same one. “Jack,” he called out, voice somewhat hoarse. 

Jack slipped into the clearing, followed by Price, Zeller, and Beverly holding up the rear. “See anything?”

“It’s definitely the same guy,” Will agreed. “A bit blunt this time around, but I think he simply couldn’t resist making the pun.”

Beverly choked down a laugh and Jack fixed them both with a stern gaze. "The victim definitely had a god-complex,” Beverly said quickly, schooling her face into something more neutral.

“Another… influencer?” Jack said it slowly, and the words came out like he wasn’t quite sure they had been the right ones.

“Youtube,” Beverly corrected. “Uploaded a really foul video earlier this month and the internet crucified him for it.”

“Guess the killer decided to make it a bit more literal,” Will muttered, and he caught Beverly turning away to hide her grin.

“Okay,” Jack chastised, steering the conversation back on track. “Tell me more about this setup, aside from the obvious symbolism.”

“Uh.” Will refocused. “Still just one guy, and I’m pretty damn sure it’s a guy now, unless it’s one hell of a strong woman. He set the cross up himself, threw the rope around it and used it to haul the guy up onto it.”

“Yup,” Price confirmed, peering at the torso of the corpse. “There’s irritation here, and rope burns fit the bill nicely.”

“Same up here,” Zeller added, standing on a small stool to look at the top joints of the cross.

“He was hung while he was alive,” Will continued, grimacing. “The killer wanted to leave him here and let him die the old fashioned way, but he couldn’t chance him being discovered and saved, so he…” Will trailed off, but not before making a cutting motion across his own throat. 

“Alright,” Jack cut in sharply. “This is getting out of hand. Katz, Graham, I want you two back at the lab, looking into the victim’s online presence again.”

Will opened his mouth, protests on the tip of his tongue, but Beverly’s hand on his arm halted him. “Tell us if you find anything else,” she replied, and all but dragged Will out of the clearing once they had been dismissed.

“This is not remotely what he asked for my help with,” Will growled, jaw shifting in irritation.

“Yeah, well.” Beverly waved her hands around aimlessly. “Can I get a ride? I rode up with Jack.”

Will nodded, and they both climbed into his old Volvo. “Aren’t there cybercrime experts doing this?” He paused. “Or interns?”

Beverly laughed, and Will pulled out onto the dirt road that led him here. “They did, and didn’t find anything worth pursuing. That’s probably why he wants you to take a look at it, see if you notice something that got overlooked.”

“And you’re helping because he doesn’t trust me to not fall asleep in the middle?”

“I’m helping because I’m the expert.” When Will glanced over, Beverly was cracking a grin. “When he said it was getting out of hand, do you think he meant the killer or us?”

Will grimaced, turning his focus onto the dark road before them. “Somehow, I think we’re better off not knowing the answer to that question.”

Much to his chagrin, Will did, in fact, find something. He was pouring over the Instagram accounts of the victims that had them and noticed a familiar place cropping up in most. “Come take a look at this,” he called, and Beverly rolled her chair over to inspect what he had found.

“Flowers?” She peered closer, watching as Will swapped between all the relevant tabs.

“It’s the same fields,” he expanded. “Most of the people who have turned up dead have taken photos in these same flower fields.”

“Damn, Graham.” Beverly cracked another grin. “I knew you were into gardening but I didn’t know you could figure that out on sight.”

“Most of them are labeled.” Will frowned. “I grow vegetables.”

“Whatever you say, Olmsted. What’s the place called?”

“Lecter Estates,” Will read off the screen. 

“Oh!” The name seemed to ring a bell for Beverly, and Will turned to fully face her. “That’s pretty close by, actually. It’s insanely popular, pretty much anyone who’s big on Insta goes there for a photoshoot. They come from all over the world when the flowers are in bloom.”

“Look at all the photos, though,” Will continued, swapping back between them. “They’re all right in the middle of the fields, probably where they shouldn’t be.’

Beverly hummed, considering. “It’s worth passing onto Jack, at least. Maybe we can pay the place a visit and see if someone that works there is prone to vanishing within suspicious time frames.”

They continued searching until the evening, finding nothing else, and parted ways just before sundown.

When Will arrived home, he could hear the soft barking from inside. “I’m sorry,” Will apologized, opening the door and greeting Winston as he spilled out onto the porch. “I know I was gone for a while today.” Winston jumped up to greet him, licking his face excitedly, panting as Will scratched behind his ears. Will stood, threw his keys into a bowl on the dresser closest to his door, and put his coat away. He dished out the food for his dog before returning outside and rounding the house to check on his garden.

He had done the watering before leaving this morning, but had been planning on doing some weeding and pruning today. He walked through the plants slowly, checking to ensure they were all doing okay, judging if it could wait until tomorrow morning instead. They were still young, offering flowers instead of food, and all seemed to be in perfect health. Satisfied, he exited the garden, greeted by Winston, who knew better than to enter the fenced off area.

There was a message from Jack when he checked his phone.  _ We’re going to check out Lecter Estates tomorrow. Be here by 11. _ If he got up early, he would still have time before he left, but he should go to bed now and hope sleep took him.

He dreamt of walking through a field of flowers, blood pouring out of the holes in his hands and feet, a crown of thorns upon his head.

The fields bordering the road were stunning. Bright expanses of color, only separated by paths to allow workers access to the flowers, sectioned away in neat squares based on color. The colors ran in order of the rainbow but within their borders were nearly perfectly uniform, and Will could not help but be impressed. He couldn’t even get two carrots to be the same size, much less massive fields of flowers that are all the exact same color.

“It’s incredible,” Beverly murmured, glancing out her window to take in the flowers as she drove. “I can see why everybody wants to take photos here.”

“Doesn’t give them the right to trespass,” Will grunted, head throbbing. His home had been on the way to their destination and Beverly had offered to give him a ride, something he greatly appreciated due to how little sleep he had been able to get the previous night. He had barely managed to tend to his garden before she arrived, and while she had waited to allow him time to clean himself up, he imagined there was still plenty of soil in his hair.

“Of course not,” Beverly answered, and now she glanced over at Will. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look like I just picked you up at the cemetery.”

Will groaned, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “I’m sure all the dirt really completes the ‘freshly unearthed corpse’ look.” Beverly laughed, but then fell silent, waiting for a real answer. “I just didn’t sleep well, got a headache. I’ll be fine, honestly.”

Beverly seemed satisfied with the answer, at least for now, and changed topics. “You know what kinds of flowers these are?” she teased.

Will did not. He looked outside for a long moment before finally replying with “Orange.” This caused Beverly to laugh once more, and even Will cracked a grin.

They arrived at the estates around noon, just behind Jack but before Zeller and Price. “Afternoon,” the larger man greeted, and while there was a measure of concern in his eyes when he looked at Will, he said nothing.

The fields had broken to leave a large area for the building, giving the illusion of it being in the middle of a vast ocean as blue flowers bloomed on either side. There was a smaller, far more personal garden in front of the vast house, filled with a greater variety and wilder splashes of color. It belonged to the owner, Will realized as he gazed at the plants within, and he tended to it himself, raised it with immeasurable care. This was something he could respect.

_ As long as the owner doesn't go around murdering young adults in their spare time, _ Will amended. He glanced up, caught the edge of the sun, and his eyes flew shut so fast it may have been audible. “Would it be weird if I wore sunglasses?” he muttered, low enough that only Beverly could hear.

“Do you  _ have _ sunglasses?” Beverly pointed out, reasonably. “It’ll probably look like you’re hungover, honestly.”

“I don’t and I’m not,” Will answered, opening his eyes once his head was tilted almost entirely at the ground. 

Zeller and Price arrived then, effectively ending the conversation. Jack rattled off the plan ( _ Katz, Price, and Zeller, you’ll be getting a tour of the grounds and a run-down on how everything is grown. Graham, you’re with me, we’ll be talking to the owner directly.)  _ and they split, Will following his boss up to the heavy wooden door that marked the entrance to the house before them. Before either got the chance to knock the door opened before them, revealing a slim woman with dark hair tied back, dressed in smart black clothing. “Crawford, I presume?” she asked, voice soft and accented. “If you will follow me, I will show you to the sitting area. Dr Lecter will be with you in a moment.”

The sitting area was probably the size of the entire bottom floor of Will’s house. “Doctor?” he mused, gravitating towards the many bookshelves lining the walls.

“It’s the PhD kind, not the medical kind,” Jack clarified, sitting on the plush couch closest to the door. “He has several, if my information is correct.”

Will fought the urge to roll his eyes. He hated academics, though he understood the irony of that coming from a professor. The books, though, he appreciated, an eclectic mix of everything from horticulture to Marxist literature. 

The door across the room opened, and Will glanced over to finally put a face to the name. It was a tall man, broad shoulders, sandy hair, sharp cheekbones. Very striking, though not as much as the absurdly patterned suit he was wearing. All in all, a very memorable person, and Will added a mark to the ‘not a serial killer’ column in his mind.

He was very attractive. Will turned back to the books, acting like he was barely listening, focused more in inspecting the room around him.

“Doctor Lecter?” Jack asked, holding out a hand to shake.

“You must be Jack Crawford,” the stranger greeted, shaking the offered hand. His voice was deep, heavily accented, though not the same as the woman who had let them into the home. European, Will guessed, but he could not place exactly where. “I am assuming this has something to do with the recent string of deaths, does it not?”

Will tensed and relaxed almost immediately, though he knew Jack would freeze for fractionally longer. They had not told Lecter what the purpose of their visit was.

“Somewhat,” Jack countered, finally recovering. “More along the lines of hoping you could tell us something about the victims. Quite a few of them were photographed in these very fields, beyond the fences.”

“Ah,” Lecter continued sharply, and Will could sense his mood had dropped. “It is a common problem, sadly. They climb the barriers and trample the flowers as they go, destroying a lot of people’s hard work. There are too many to keep out and we must simply account for the loss of a portion of our yields each year. Truly horrendous people.” A pause. “That does not justify what has happened to any of them, of course.”

“But maybe it wasn’t that big of a loss,” Will muttered, quiet enough no one could hear. There was a rustling, no more conversation, and he turned to find Jack fixing him with a gaze that could turn a man to stone. Maybe he hadn’t been as quiet as he intended.

“And who is this?” Lecter asked, and Will saw amusement of all things in his gaze.

“Uh,” Will answered, thrown. 

“Will Graham,” Jack supplied, turning back to Lecter. Will knew he’d be getting a fierce talking-to later that day. “Consultant for us.”

“Please, Will,” Lecter called, motioning to the couch. “Sit with us. There is no need to pace the room like an animal.”

Will’s face burned hot but he obeyed, taking a seat next to his boss on the couch. He half expected to be kicked in the shins but professionalism clearly won out, Jack letting no more than a sigh escape him. He was thrown once more when Lecter held a hand out, clearly asking for another handshake. “Hannibal Lecter,” he introduced, his grip nearly crushing.

“Nice to meet you,” Will said politely, only barely keeping the stutter out of his voice. 

“Likewise,” Hannibal replied, smiling in a way that did not reach his mouth. “How may I assist you gentlemen today?”

Jack spoke up now, allowing Will to observe as usual, redirecting Hannibal’s attention back to himself. “How do you handle incidents where people have climbed the fences and destroyed property? Do you call the police, are there incident reports, anything like that?”

“Unfortunately we do not catch them most of the time,” came the answer. Hannibal had turned his head to look at Jack but his entire body was still angled towards Will, giving the impression he’d much rather be speaking to someone else. Will wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. “When we do, we get the police involved, and there should be reports on file for every time this has happened.”

“We’ll need to see those.” Jack, as usual, did not ask for permission, seeing if any pushback happened, letting Will check for minute changes in mood.

“Of course,” Hannibal answered easily, and Will could not see any change in his posture or expression. “I am afraid we do not digitize our files, so I will have to have somebody collect the relevant files by hand. It will take some time but I can likely have them ready for you by tomorrow.”

Jack nodded, pulling out a business card and handing it to the man seated across from them. “Let me know when we can come pick them up.”

Hannibal peered down at the business card before flicking his gaze back up. “Should I not call someone else? You seem quite important to be taking calls for parcel deliveries.” Hannibal’s gaze did not waver but the muscles around his eyes twitched only just, like his eyes had tried to track somewhere else and he had stopped them just in time. 

“I’ll answer,” Jack replied, voice flat. “Thank you for your cooperation, Doctor Lecter.”

They all stood and shook hands once more, though Will could not meet Hannibal’s gaze when they did so. “Allow me to show you out,” Hannibal offered, walking them through his massive home and to the front door. He held it open for the pair, Jack leaving first, but just before he crossed the threshold Will sensed a shifting of air and a soft inhale.

Anyone else would have missed it. Will glanced back, finding Hannibal standing perfectly straight, but the man in question gave him a small smile before bidding them good day and closing the door.

“The others won’t be done for a while,” Will pointed out, trying to shake the strange encounter. “Are we waiting?” He hoped they were.

“No,” Jack sighed. “You’ll ride back with me.”

Climbing into the car felt like putting the noose around his own neck, but Will could not avoid it. Thankfully, Jack prioritized the case, asking what Will thought of Hannibal the second they were on the road. “He’s odd, but I doubt it’s him,” Will answered honestly. “He was perfectly happy to help us and doesn’t exactly fly under the radar.”

“So he’s either innocent or egotistical,” Jack extrapolated. “He could be buying time so he could modify the incident files.”

“One of those is more likely than the other, considering his intelligence. I doubt he’d be stupid enough to taunt us right to our faces, especially if we were onto him.” Will thought back to the profile he’d been building of their killer. The care and presentation had been present throughout his run, but it had started clumsy and refined as time went on. “If it’s really him killing all these people, I have no idea how he’d find the time.”

It came out before he could stop himself. Buried beneath the wry comment there was a genuine observation, and Jack had learned to dig them out, but he still chastised Will for being inappropriate. Now, he sighed, hands tightening on the steering wheel. “Will, that comment you made earlier…”

Will could only sit and accept the lecture, slouching into his seat the entire drive back to Quantico.

The kill the next day was unexpected. Forensics had returned to the crucifixion scene to do a final clean up, only to find a new body placed in the center, right under their noses. It was in the daylight, this time, but Will had still not slept much, tormented by strange dreams filled with blood and flowers. “This is…” he murmured, taking in the sight before him.

“The Virgin Mary,” Price chirped, tilting back the woman’s head with a gloved hand. “Cause of death is nothing obvious this time around, sorry to say.”

“Everybody out!” Jack bellowed, leaving Will alone with the corpse before him. He closed his eyes.

_ She has not done anything directly wrong, but she is complicit in her lover’s actions. If he is Jesus, then she is Mary, weeping tears onto the ground at his death. She is- _

Will opens his eyes and sees a woman before him, tears pouring down her face, shaking in fear. The forest around him is gone, replaced with a dull grey room with a drain in the center of the floor. Soothing, he shushes her, placing a gloved hand on her lips through the gag, but she only cries harder. “Don’t worry,” he whispers. “It will be over soon enough.”

In his hands, a scalpel sits. He pushes her to the floor, sitting astride her so she can not buck away, one hand holding her head down and still. The blade cuts in easily, sinking under her eye, reaching back to sever the optic nerve and detach the organ completely. Blood and liquid seeps out from the socket, a surprisingly small amount, and with a neat flick of his wrist the eye pops out entirely. He sets it aside, puts in a safe place. She screams beneath her gag as he repeats the process with the other eye.

Experimentally, he holds the eyelids closed, but they sink in and do not suit his vision. Similarly, the tracks of fluid down her cheeks are not prominent enough, but a flash of inspiration hits him. Will blinks, and then beside him sits a tray with a needle and thread and two large marbles. Not exact, but they should do the trick. First though, he raises the scalpel once more, cutting into her cheeks, sectioning off a thin strip that tracked down her face like a cruel mockery of tears. He pulls the skin away, tearing the fat and tissue holding it on, leaving raw, angry wounds trailing down her face, crying tears of blood. The marbles slot in easily, a tad too big, but he forces them in regardless, listening to the cracking as her orbital sockets fracture.

It’s too messy. He allows her time to die, time for the blood to stop flowing, before he washes her face and sews the eyes shut. He must move fast, before rigor mortis sets in, and sets her in a kneeling position, hands connected in prayer. 

Will’s eyes fly open with a gasp. The body is before him, in the woods, facing right at where the cross had been before. “Jack!” he shouts, and the familiar team is around him in moments.

“What did you see?” Jack prompts.

“Th- the eyes,” Will stutters, trembling. “She has no eyes.”

Zeller, at the body, pokes one with a gloved finger. “Yep,” he confirms. “Way too hard to actually be an eye. We’ll find out what it really is once we do the autopsy.”

“Get anything useful?” Will shook his head, rubbing at his forehead with a quivering hand. Jack frowns. “You fell too deep again, didn’t you.”

All Will can do is nod. “It’s… she was complicit. He wanted to complete the set, I think.”

Jack turns back to the crime scene, where Katz, Zeller and Price are all taking preliminary samples. “He hasn’t taken the organs before, right?”

“He has not, and before you ask, I don’t know why he’s changed.” A pause, a deep breath, an attempt to focus. “He saved them, I know that much.”

Jack opened his mouth to reply but his phone rang. He walked a safe distance away before answering, speaking in low tones. The call was brief and he was back in less than a minute. “Hannibal has the files for us,” he explained. “Go pick them up.”

Will’s head snapped up, surprise in his eyes. “Me? Don’t you need me at the scene?”

“Not like this.” The words held no malice, but Will flinched all the same. “Go pick up the records and meet us back at Quantico. Doctor Lecter will be expecting you.” Jack fell silent, taking in Will’s obvious distress, and his brow softened. “Get some food or something before you come back, Will. The autopsy won’t be happening any time soon.”

Will nodded, taking the escape offered to him, and was proud that he did not stumble on the journey back to his car. 

He drove to Lecter Estates with the windows down and the radio off, focusing on the sounds of birds and traffic and the feeling of the wind whipping through his hair to try and center himself. As he got closer he took in the sea of colors and the pleasant yet surprisingly mild scent of the flowers. The way the squares of color slowly faded into each other was stunning and seemed almost otherworldly.

There were people among the blossoms, posing with wide-brimmed hats and flowing clothes. Will wondered which of them they would find butchered next.

By the time he pulled into the main compound, Will felt entirely like himself again. While he didn’t particularly care what Hannibal thought of his appearance it wouldn’t be good to show up looking like he had driven here with his head hanging out the car window like a dog, so he ran his hands through his curls and did his best to smooth them down before stepping out of the car and approaching the large home near the back. 

Once again, the door was opened before he had time to knock, but this time Hannibal himself stood over the threshold. “Hello, Will,” he greeted, far too personal for the occasion. 

Will ignored it. “Doctor Lecter,” he answered briskly, accepting the offered handshake. “Jack said you had the files ready for us.”

“Of course. Please, come in and sit while I fetch them for you.” Hannibal stepped back and Will followed him through the house and back into the familiar sitting room. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“No, thank you. I should be getting these back to Jack ASAP.”

Hannibal nodded. “If you would be so kind as to wait here, I will retrieve the files from my office and be back momentarily.” With that, he left.

Will was drawn back to the bookcases. There seemed to be one entirely dedicated to everything related to gardening, and he glanced through the names before landing on a small section that seemed to be focused on growing plants for food, including vegetables. His fingers twitched towards the books, eager to pour through their contents, but this was not the time nor place to do so.

“You garden, do you not?”

The voice startled Will out of his reverie, and he spun to lock eyes with Hannibal, who had returned with alarming speed. He was holding a cardboard box that was filled with a large number of files, by the looks of it. “I- yeah,” Will finally answered, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. 

“Vegetables?” Hannibal hummed, head cocking slightly to the side, eyes sharp.

Will straightened up. Had he simply guessed correctly, or was there more to this strange man than meets the eye? “How did you know?” he asked, probing for the answer.

“I suppose I could spin some tale about how I smelled the dirt on you the last time we met and it was rich in vegetable matter, but in truth you appear to have been browsing a very specific part of my collection and I wouldn’t peg you for a man with an orchard.” Hannibal was smiling now, truly, though it was more of a smirk than anything else.

Despite himself, Will laughed. “I guess you’ve got me there,” he admitted. “Annuals, for the most part.”

“Do you enjoy being able to start anew each season? The allure of a blank canvas is a powerful thing.” 

Will nodded slowly. In truth, his garden was chaotic and disorganized, by design. Plants wove within each other at near random, and he often did not even know what he was growing until they bore fruit. He looked back up, at the ordered man before him, and thought of his neatly sectioned fields of flowers. He would hate it.

“I should get those back to Jack,” Will interrupted, taking the box as Hannibal handed it to him. “We’ll return them to you as soon as possible, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

“I understand,” Hannibal replied, the smile vanished off his face. “I must apologize, though. There was one file I was unable to locate.”

Will’s eyes landed back on Hannibal’s face, watching intently, picking his words carefully. “And why is that?”

“It is an older report, likely simply misfiled,” Hannibal answered cooly. “I can give you the name of the person it regards, but I am afraid I will have to continue searching for the file itself.”

The box was heavy in Will’s arms, swelling with folders and sheets of paper. “There are a lot of files in here,” Will said slowly, gaze steely. “Yet you remember a single incident well enough to both know the file is missing and give me the person’s full name?”

Hannibal’s mouth ticked up, but it was not a smile. “I have an exceptional memory. I would likely be able to recite those files to you by heart, if you asked.”

_ Photographic memory, _ Will noted internally. He’s been told he has something similar, but he never put much stock in the concept and was instantly suspicious. “Well, call Jack when it turns up and we’ll come get it.”

“I may locate it within the hour,” Hannibal continued, face returning to neutral. “In the chance that I do so, it would be helpful if I could call you directly, and you could turn around and collect it.”

At that, Will felt the tension leave his body, replaced by what should have been outrage but was instead mostly bafflement. Hannibal had been lying about the reason for the file’s exclusion from the start, that much was true, but it was for far less nefarious purposes than Will had initially assumed. He should have given Hannibal a piece of his mind for withholding potential evidence for personal reasons, but instead he gave him his phone number. “I’ll be driving, so just text me if you find it,” Will added as he wrote the numbers down. “What’s the offender’s name?”

“Isabelle Hermann.” Not a victim, thankfully. “I hope to find it soon.” Hannibal looked pleased, to the point where Will had the instinctual urge to smack that smug look off his face. It had been smooth, that much he had to admit, but incredibly audacious in a way he had not expected of the other man.

“Yeah, well, me too,” Will muttered, trying to sound irritated and not vaguely impressed.

Based on the tone of the other man’s voice, he had not entirely succeeded. “I wish you the best of luck with your case, detective.” Will did not correct Hannibal and departed shortly, ignoring the way Hannibal’s hand lingered a touch too long on his shoulder after he was shown out.

He drove straight back to Quantico, stopping for nothing on the way.

Beverly had food for him and all but launched the bag his way when he walked in the door. “Knew you wouldn’t stop,” she chided, taking the box of files from him and setting it on the table. They were in the room they had repurposed previously, a large folding table set up in the middle. “Brian and Jimmy are working on the autopsy, so we’re back on privileged twenty-somethings duty.” 

“You think they’d need an extra hand?” Will watched her set the box of files on the edge of the table, leaving plenty of room for the files themselves to be spread out. 

“Nope!” she answered cheerfully. “Eat your food, and we can get started.”

Will sighed, but obeyed, listening as Beverly laid out the plan for him. “Pull out all the victims first, and close friends, significant others, and relatives. I’ve got a list of those for you here.” He accepted the alarmingly crowded slip of paper, scanning it and committing the names to memory. “You’ll be researching those, and I’ll be looking into the rest. We’re looking for potential future victims, and we’ll take those along with the ones that have already been picked off over to Jack and co.”

“Mhm,” Will mumbled, mouth full of food. He swallowed. “Sorry, where did you say all the interns went?”

“This is your fault, you know,” Beverly laughed. “We were in here for a day and found a useable lead everyone else missed. Don’t expect to be off research duty any time soon.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Will rolled his eyes. She punched him lightly on the shoulder before wheeling her chair away, a stack of files in her hand. Once Will finished eating, he sat at the table and sorted through the rest.

He focused on the known victims, first. A part of him was relieved to find only about half of them had files in the box, and when he double checked the rest, most lacked photos in the fields entirely. Those that did were in what he recognized as the further fields, easier to miss, and had simply never been caught. “I don’t think it’s him,” he called over his shoulder, glancing towards Beverly. “I think you were right, and it was just a really common place for people to take photos.”

“I guess there would be a pretty big overlap between people who trample flowers and people who are straight up insufferable,” Beverly mused, typing something as she spoke. “Even if that is a dead end, this is a lot of new data and can help us focus on where to go next.”

“Not enough of the victims have files in here,” Will continued, feeling the need to explain himself. “A lot of them don’t have photos in the fields at all. The only significant thing is that the first victim is in here, honestly.”

“Well, you met with him twice, right?” Beverly stopped typing, thinking for a moment. “What was he like?”

“Forward.” The word came out before Will could stop it, and he groaned to himself when he heard Beverly spinning her chair to face him.

“You know,” she began, and Will put his head in his hands. “I meant more along the lines of if you picked up any murder vibes, but let’s talk about this instead.”

“Let’s not,” Will countered, trying to ignore the squeaking as Beverly rolled her chair over to him.

“It’s way too late for that.” He finally turned his head, only slightly, and saw the huge grin on his friend’s face. “Spill.”

Will knew that look well. He could try to dodge the question, try to ignore her, but Beverly was relentless and he had long since learned to just tell her what she wanted to hear. “You know the missing file?” She nodded, waiting. “He told me he had misplaced it, but he was lying. I’m not sure if he knew that I could tell.”

“And?” Beverly knew Will well enough to not become suspicious, and let him continue.

“He, well.” Will finally turned now, leaning back against the desk behind him, staring at the ceiling. “He was definitely trying to get my number instead of Jack’s, the first time we all went there. It was subtle, and he masked his intentions pretty well, so I don’t think Jack realized.”

“Wait,” Beverly interrupted, pieces clicking together. “Are you saying he withheld evidence as an excuse to get your phone number?” Will nodded, refusing to look at her, and she let out a low whistle. “Damn, that’s…”

“Reckless? Brazen? Idiotic?” Will helpfully supplied. 

“You gave it to him, didn’t you,” Beverly accused. All Will could do was nod once more, and she let out a loud  _ whoop. _ “Get it, Graham!” she cheered.

“Look, he had a good enough cover, and I figured it couldn’t hurt-”

“Tall, handsome,  _ rich… _ ” Beverly trailed off. “He’s a catch, that’s for sure.”

“He’s barely taller than me!”

“You’ve only got two of those going for you, Will, and I feel like you lose half a point for your clothes being mostly dirt and dog hair.” She grinned at him.

“That’s not what I meant and we’re not going to have this conversation-”

“Am I interrupting something?” Both Will and Beverly sat bolt upright at the familiar voice, spinning to face Jack somewhat guiltily. 

“We’re, uh,” Will attempted, but he stalled.

“Still looking into the unrelated files,” Beverly finished.

“They can wait a bit longer,” Jack grunted, gesturing for them to stand. “Price and Zeller are finished with the autopsy. Think you can spare a minute?”

“Yes, of course.” Will rushed the words out. “We’ll be right there.”

Jack left them, shaking his head, and Will very pointedly did not look at Beverly and her stupid grin the whole time they walked to the morgue.

“Cause of death seems to be shock,” Zeller supplied, when they all stood in a circle around the body. “Everything looks to have been done while she was still alive, and there’s no obviously fatal injuries. Probably bled out slowly, through the eyes, until her heart couldn't take it anymore.”

“Well, through the lack of them,” Price interjected. “The marbles he shoved in afterwards were just plain old marbles, the kind you could pick up anywhere. Same goes for the thread sewing the eyes closed.”

Beverly grimaced, but Will did not. The rest of the meeting passed as normal.

That night, after he tended to Winston and his garden, Will noticed he had a text from an unknown number.  _ I am afraid I could not locate the file,  _ it read, the sender obvious despite no name being attached.  _ I will let you know as soon as I find it. _ Will tapped the icon at the top, went to add a new contact, and stopped. Would ‘smug idiot’ be too mean? Did he need to add the contact at all? It would help him know at a glance if he should actually check his texts, but at the same time it felt like a step too far.

Eventually, he simply typed in the letter ‘H’, turned his phone off, and went to bed. He did not send a reply.

That night, as he dreamt, he found himself deep inside a place he never wished to return. There had been another killer he had fallen deep into the kills of- the infamous Chesapeake Ripper. Very little was known about the actual perpetrator, other than the fact that he seemed to be more active in the winter months, but only just. He had periods of activity where he littered the world with incredibly brutal displays, and while Will had studied him extensively, he had unfortunately gotten the chance to work the case directly then he had resurfaced during the first year Will had worked for Jack. It had ended badly, with Will falling so thoroughly he barely avoided contaminating a crime scene, and had been forced to come clean with his boss about what had been happening. Jack had pulled him off the case, but ultimately it hadn’t mattered, because the killer had gone dormant once more.

Later, when Will tried to figure out why it had happened, he could only connect the religious theming and the strips of skin, but for now, he saw it happen once more.

He is dropped in partway through the kill, the man’s mouth already hollow and filled with blood, holes where his teeth had once been. Said teeth are collected in a bowl to the side for later usage. He drops the final tooth inside with a clatter, setting the pliers on a rag to absorb the blood and spit. Before continuing, he checks the IV the man is hooked up to, ensuring he remains awake to perform the finale. His victim’s eyes are wide and frightened.

Now, he drops the back of the chair and pushes the man forward, slumping him over and exposing his back. He is not entirely sure the man will survive the next step, but if he does, he will have a period to rest before his goal is reached. Originally, he only planned to take the skin from half the back, but in the many whips he created as practice he has learned that he will need to start with as much material as possible. It is because of this that he cuts an outline encompassing the man’s entire back, only deep enough to free the skin, careful to avoid the spine. He digs his fingers into a corner of the skin, takes hold, and pulls.

It does not come easily, but it does peel away in one piece. He thinks he hears the man screaming, but it is closer to a gurgle because of all the blood filling his mouth. “Don’t drown in it,” he chides, reaching around to open the man’s mouth and ensure the blood escapes. “It would be a quite a pitiful end.” Satisfied, Will steps away with the huge sheet of skin, and leaves the man slumped over in the chair. “You get a break, now. Try and relax.”

He cuts the skin into thin strips, as long as he can make them. The scraps can be used to tie around the handle later. Next, the teeth; he takes a small hammer and shatters them all, selecting and separating the sharpest shards he has created. The rest he can weave in carelessly, but the sharpest ones need to be added precisely. The cores have been created earlier, so all that remains to be done is braid the whip around them.

What he is creating is by no means a standard whip and would likely fall apart easily with regular use, but he only needs it to last long enough to inflict the damage he intends it to. There are 12 strips of skin and so he braids them into three short tails, setting the teeth into the pattern as he goes. He spaces them as evenly as he is able, though due to the irregular nature of the shards of teeth, the end result will always be a bit messy. Once finished, he binds them to the leather handle, and wraps the scraps of skin around as a sort of guard.

Will approaches the man, whip in hand, and is pleased to see he has remained alive. “Here,” he says, holding the weapon forward. “Take this. Give yourself ten lashes, and I will free you.”

The man’s head jerks up, a faint glimmer of hope in his eyes. He takes the implement, and Will steps back, observing.

A guttural scream escapes the man when the short whip first connects with his upper back. The teeth dig in and slice through his flesh, sending droplets of blood flying backwards. It only reaches his upper back, but the three tails ensure it strikes all of it. “Again,” Will orders. The many obeys.

He dies before he gets to five, and Will pries the whip from his hand and inflicts the six he had not managed. 

Will and Beverly were pouring over the files again when his phone chirped. He glanced at it, fully intending to ignore the text unless it happened to be from Jack, but froze when he saw the ‘H’ flash across his screen. That morning, soon after waking, he had broken down and sent Hannibal a reply;  _ Just let me know when you find it, _ it had said.  _ You don’t need to bother sending me updates,  _ was the unspoken message, but under that rested  _ but you can continue to contact me directly.  _

“It usually helps if you unlock your phone so you can actually see the message,” Beverly teased, and Will realized he had zoned out staring at his phone.

Will shot her a look and pulled up the text.  _ I have found the file. You may collect it at your convenience.  _

_ I can swing by now, if that’s okay, _ Will typed out. Why did he even feel the need to ask? It wasn’t like he was swinging by to pick up a forgotten jacket, he was there on business. “Hannibal found the last file,” he said, this time out loud.

“Hannibal?” The corner of Beverly’s mouth ticked up in a smile at the familiarity. 

“Doctor Lecter,” Will corrected, scowling. “I’m gonna go pick it up.”

“We’re almost done here anyways, I can probably finish it up before you get back.” She glanced up, at a clock on the wall. “It’ll be lunch time once you get there,” she commented, trying to sound as innocent as possible.

“I’ll grab something on the way back,” Will swerved. He grabbed his phone, wallet and keys from where he had thrown them on the table earlier, and stood to leave. “Be back in a couple hours.”

“Take your time!” Beverly called out to him, and he flipped her off as he left, followed by the sound of her laughter.

He checked his phone just before he started his car, just in case.  _ Of course, _ it said.  _ I will be expecting you. _ Will turned the car on, pulled out of the lot at Quantico, and headed towards the sea of flowers.

Hannibal greeted him at the door again, clad in yet another oddly patterned three-piece suit. Will wondered how the man kept himself from melting in the noonday sun. Maybe the inside of the suit was lined with tiny fans, or there was room in the lining to put ice packs. He was so caught up in his wandering thoughts that the next thing he knew, he was holding two files in his hands, standing in the sitting room with Hannibal.

“There’s two,” he commented, rather stupidly.

“We had another incident yesterday,” Hannibal explained, mouth ticked up minutely in amusement. “The other is the misplaced file.”

Will frowned. The most recent file in the box had only been about a week old. “Does this really happen this frequently?”

“Unfortunately,” Hannibal confirmed.

“That’s horrible,” Will murmured, head turning to the window and the fields beyond it. “I’m sorry that you have to deal with that.” When he turned his head back, Hannibal appeared to be studying him, and Will was unable to place the emotion behind his eyes.

“I was just about to prepare a light lunch,” Hannibal finally began, and Will swore he could hear Beverly’s laughter filling the room around them. “If you are not busy, would you care to join me? Think of it as an apology for making you come all this way so many times.”

“The flowers are more than worth the drive,” Will swerved, but Hannibal’s gaze pinned him. He had to answer properly; avoiding the question would not work on someone like Hannibal. “I- yeah, actually,” Will heard himself saying, wondering where the words were coming from. “Lunch sounds nice.”

A pleased smile spread across Hannibal’s features, and some part of Will felt like the fly willingly flinging itself into the spider’s web. “Please, let me show you to the dining room,” the older man continued, voice syrupy sweet.

The dining room was also large, a long wooden table placed in what was likely the exact center of the room. The wood was dark and shining, beautifully finished, intricate floral carvings adorning the sides. Many chairs were neatly tucked in around the outside, made of the same wood and carved to match. What truly caught Will’s attention, however, was the herb garden that had made its home along the entirety of one of the room’s walls. He wanted to explore it, take in the rows of beautiful plants, and Hannibal must have sensed as much. “Do you have any food allergies?” Will shook his head. “Then I only need put the finishing touches on the dishes,” Hannibal said. “Would tea be alright to drink?”

“That’s fine,” Will answered, trying not to let himself be distracted. 

“Then I will be back in five minutes. Feel free to explore until I return.” With that, Hannibal vanished into what was presumably the kitchen.

Will went to the plants immediately. They were all in perfect condition, trimmed neatly and flourishing, some missing larger portions where their owner had taken pieces to cook with. Herbs may not have been his specialty but Will could identify many on sight, the characteristic broad leaves of mint, basil, and the like making themselves obvious. He closed his eyes and inhaled, reveling in the aromas mixing together in the air. Despite the variety, all of the herbs either had a mild odor or blended together quite nicely. One caught his eye, leaves reminding him of the mints, but placed on long stalks that stood proudly. Will leaned closer, trying to determine its nature.

“Pennyroyal,” Hannibal supplied, and when Will spun around he saw the other man placing a pitcher of iced tea and two empty glasses onto the table runner that protected the expensive wood. He strode over, joining Will beside the herb he had been studying. “When the leaves are crushed it produces an overpowering spearmint aroma, but the plant itself is toxic and should not be ingested.”

Will glanced at the plants bordering the Pennyroyal, both edible herbs he recognized. “You must be confident in your abilities to be growing dangerous herbs in between the ones you use for cooking.”

Hannibal only smiled, and motioned over to the table. “Sit. I will bring lunch out for us both.”

Part of Will wondered which of the countless seats he was meant to occupy, but was saved the trouble of deciding when Hannibal pulled his chair out for him before returning to the kitchen. It was embarrassing, somewhat, but if the botanist wanted to lay it on this thick Will figured he could at the very least allow him to do so. He did not have long to dwell on the matter, as soon Hannibal entered with two large plates of food, and every complex thought flew out of Will’s head.

What was placed before him was a plate of thinly sliced cabbage, glistening with a light dressing and speckled with black sesame seeds. Atop them sat a beautifully fanned circle of sliced steak, spreading out like the petals of a flower. Woven in between the ‘petals’ were small sticks of radishes, and as it got closer to the edge, carefully carved wedges of red pepper. Hoops of sliced scallions were sprinkled on top, a brilliant green, and if he looked closer Will could spot the whites of the scallions mixed in with the cabbage. When Will finally recovered enough to look back up he saw Hannibal pouring them both glasses of the pale tea before straightening up. “Steak and Napa cabbage salad with radish, bell peppers and scallions, tossed with a miso dressing,” he introduced, waving his hand over the food with a flourish before taking his seat directly across the table from Will.

Will looked up, eyebrow raised. “A light lunch?”

Hannibal’s face morphed into an expression that probably would have been ‘sheepish’ on anyone else but managed to look mischievous instead. “I find I tend to get carried away when dining with others,” he conceded. “Please, eat.”

Obediently, Will speared a bit of everything on his fork and raised the bite to his mouth. He had about a half second between when the aroma hit him full force and the food hit his tongue to prepare himself for the flavor and it was only  _ just _ enough time to choke back the moan of appreciation that nearly escaped him. The dressing was light and complimented the crunch of the cabbage wonderfully, the steak was seasoned and cooked to perfection, and all the ingredients were clearly of the highest and freshest quality. “This is incredible,” Will said after swallowing, putting his hands back down onto the table.

“I am pleased you enjoy it,” Hannibal answered humbly, but his eyes gave away how intensely satisfied he truly was. He watched as Will lifted another bite to his mouth, eyes sharp. “The meat is from a roast I served several days ago, and I am glad to hear it has kept so well.”

“If these are what your leftovers taste like, I can only imagine what it’s like straight out of the oven,” Will countered, leaving the opening before he could stop himself.

“Perhaps someday you shall find out,” Hannibal answered, mouth curling up into a smile.

Will swallowed. He should really figure out his own intentions before he launched himself into whatever game Hannibal had seen fit to begin playing. The man was very clearly interested and did not seem particularly concerned about disguising his flirtations. It was a thorny subject, one that required introspection Will wasn’t sure he wanted to attempt, and the salad was really very good, so would it hurt terribly to leave the decision making for later?

They talked, unsurprisingly, about gardening. Will let Hannibal control the conversation, listening to him talk about his flowers, but was somewhat surprised when the man swiftly steered it back to Will, asking about his own personal garden. He thought about his chaotic sprawl, the uniform flowers, and his mouth ticked down into a frown. “I’m not sure you’d approve,” he answered honestly.

“Why is that?” If anything the answer only seemed to fuel Hannibal’s curiosity, and Will resigned himself to having to explain the process in full.

He set his utensils down before speaking. “I… plant things randomly, to put it briefly.” Hannibal’s gaze was encouraging, so he continued. “I go to a little garden shop and they sell packets of seeds, the bits leftover from the main packaging or anything not quite up to par to sell. All kinds of plants, grouped loosely by care instruction. I buy as many as I can fit, fill the land, and see what happens.”

“You fill your garden with the things no one wants and let nature take its course.” Hannibal set his utensils down as well. They had both finished eating and were now simply talking. “Am I correct in assuming not all survive to harvest?”

“Unfortunately,” Will confirmed. “No matter what I do, some things need more than I can give before I figure out what they are, or just get smothered by the things around them.”

Hannibal hummed thoughtfully. “Only the strong survive.”

Will thinks back several years, to finding the fragile buds of a pepper plant crushed beneath the sprawling vines of squash. “No,” he corrects. “The lucky.”

Across from him, Hannibal falls strangely silent, and when Will glances up he sees an unreadable expression on the other man’s face. Soon enough, it smooths back to neutral, and he speaks up. “Why did you think I would not approve?”

_ Right to the point, _ Will thought to himself. “It just-” He stops suddenly, rubbing the back of his neck. Glances out towards where the fields lay. “It’s wasteful, and disorganized. You seem like the type of person who values order above all else.”

“Show me,” Hannibal says suddenly. 

Will looks up, eyes widening in surprise. “I’m sorry?”

“Your garden,” Hannibal clarifies. “Send me pictures when you return home. I would very much like to see it.”

“Uh,” Will starts, thrown off guard. He was starting to think Hannibal specialized in knocking people off balance. “I- yeah, okay.”

Hannibal smiles, but it’s sharp. It’s only later, when Will has left, that he realizes it felt more like an order than a request.

The conversation winds down and ends naturally not much later. Ever the gentleman, Hannibal thanks Will for joining him, guides him out, hand resting just below the back of Will’s neck. Will leaves content but dazed, unsure what to make of the encounter.

Before he starts the car, he texts Beverly, realizing he should have been back already.  _ Stopped for lunch, _ he says, not entirely a lie.  _ Be back in an hour. _ The response that flashes across the screen is a mess of emojis, mostly winking faces and eggplants, and Will tosses the phone into the passenger seat so he doesn’t have to look at it.

Than night, before sundown, Will spends far too long taking photos of his garden before selecting no more than three and sending them to Hannibal. When he steps out of the shower, he finds a response;  _ It’s beautiful, Will. _ He unlocks his phone, edits the contact, and adds to the ‘H’ until it properly reads ‘Hannibal’.


	2. I Care For You Deeply

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will keeps making lunch plans with Hannibal, unable to forget both the food and the man who cooked it. Their newest killer, however, isn't slowing down.

Several weeks passed with no developments in the case, and so Will had plenty of time to dwell on the fact that Hannibal had not stopped texting him and he had not stopped responding in turn. Will had accidentally (intentionally?) sent a photo with Winston in the background, roaming the area just outside the fence, waiting for his master to emerge, and Hannibal had picked up the thread of conversation there. By the time that topic had passed it felt weird to stop talking altogether. A week later, Will realized they had simply become friendly, and he had lost the chance to quietly bow out of whatever was developing between them like he usually did. Hannibal had managed to slip behind his barriers so easily that it set off alarm bells that Will forced himself to ignore. Not everyone was like the serial killers he hunted.

It was not much of a surprise, then, when a week later Hannibal invited him to lunch again. More specifically, lunch and then an unofficial tour of the fields. It felt- not like a date, but like courting, and it probably was. The most surprising part was that Will said yes.

This was how he found himself sitting at Hannibal’s dining table once more, watching as yet another plate of incredible food was placed before him. “A traditional bánh mì, with pork, coriander leaf, cucumber, pickled carrots and daikon, along with a chili aioli.”

Will looked hard at the plate before up at Hannibal. “And the rest?” The sandwich was resting gently atop an explosion of color, swirls of flowers reaching the very edge of the plate.

The man across from him smiled as he sat down. “Edible flowers,” he supplied. “Do not feel as if they are part of the meal, but you may eat them if you desire.”

Will gently lifted the sandwich, peeling the flowers away from the bread and carefully returning them to their home on the plate. “You certainly have a flair,” he quipped before taking a bite and letting his eyes close in pleasure.

“I have been called theatrical many times over,” Hannibal conceded. “I find myself drawn to the arts in every form.”

Vaguely, Will remembers a harpsichord in the sitting room. “You compose,” he asserted, as a man like Hannibal would not be content with simply playing the work of others.

“Draw as well, though the flowers are my true passion.” 

As if on cue, Will set down his sandwich and plucked a flower from his plate. It tasted soft and sweet. “It’s almost suspicious how even the flowers taste so incredible.” He ate another. “I wasn’t expecting them to be so sweet.”

“Ah,” Hannibal began, and Will reached for his glass of the iced tea that they were drinking again. “That would be the ethylene glycol I spritzed them with earlier.”

Will nearly spat out the drink he had just taken. When he looked back up, Hannibal had a playful smile on his face. “It certainly enhances the flavor,” Will continued, regaining his mental footing after the unexpected joke. “Who knew antifreeze would double as a seasoning.”

Hannibal smiled at him, seemingly pleased that Will was playing along but content to let it end. He changed subjects. “How did you begin gardening, Will?”

“Oh, uh…” Will scratched at the hinge of his jaw before folding his hands onto the table. “My mother, as cliche as that seems.”

“Passing down knowledge from generation to generation is something to be respected,” Hannibal countered.

Internally, Will winced. He almost let the assumption slide, but it felt like something he should clarify and just accept the awkwardness that followed. “Not quite,” he began, glancing over at the herb walls. “My father tried to take care of her gardens after she was gone, and he was… not talented, in this particular field. So I learned how to do it and took over.”

Hannibal hummed thoughtfully at the response but, mercifully, did not give his condolences for Will having lost his mother more than three decades prior. “Some would say that is more impressive,” he said, head cocked slightly to the side. “You are self-taught and have become impressively talented entirely on your own merits.”

“Okay, no,” Will cut in, raising his gaze to meet Hannibal’s eyes. “I’m not sure why you think I’m ‘talented’, as you put it. I garden as a hobby and nothing more.”

“On the contrary,” Hannibal countered. “Even from photographs I can tell your garden is thriving. You assess every plant you see, whether you are aware of it or not, and can determine its health in seconds. Natural talent is a powerful force.”

Here, Will saw an opening to steer the conversation away from himself. “How about you?” Hannibal leaned forward at the words, waiting. “You’re a self-made man, from what I’ve read, and you’ve been immensely successful.”

“That is only mostly true.” Now, he leaned back, loosening his posture somewhat. “I come from wealth in my native country, and though we lost it, I was raised by my equally wealthy relatives. While all I have from my own past is ruins and a title, one cannot ignore the advantages a high-class upbringing imparts.”

Will’s eyes narrowed as he latched onto possibly the least important part of what Hannibal had just told him. “A title.”

“In Lithuania, I would be known as Count Hannibal Lecter. Nothing particularly impressive, I assure you.”

“Are the ruins the ruins of a castle?”

“I must stress that they are, in fact, ruins-”

“Just skip to the flowers,” Will interrupted, not wanting to dwell on the fact that he was dining with European nobility.

Most people would have been irritated at Will’s dismissive attitude, but Hannibal seemed oddly charmed. “I was raised by my aunt and uncle. My aunt was highly skilled in the art of flower arrangement, where I suppose you could say my interest began. My love of flowers drove my academic career and I flourished in academia for a time, but I found myself missing the actual act of gardening, so I flew to America. I assume you know the rest from the many articles you have read about me.”

It really, really felt like Hannibal was trying to get punched, and Will briefly wondered if this was some sort of drawn-out insurance scam. But no, he looked up and only saw that teasing smile, and knew that he simply enjoyed pushing Will’s buttons for whatever reason. Unfortunately for Hannibal, Will was more experienced at that particular activity, and therefore knew exactly what reaction Hannibal was expecting. This is why he instead did nothing, and took another bite of his sandwich.

Hannibal, denied the reaction he had searched for, instead turned the conversation back towards Will. “Tell me about your career. How did you become an FBI agent?”

“You know, I’ve been meaning to correct this for a while.” Will sighed, food forgotten on the plate before him, if only for a moment. This was not a topic he particularly enjoyed. “I’m not an agent at all, and I'm pretty certain Jack didn't introduce me as one. I teach at Quantico.”

“Yet he uses you as if you are,” Hannibal extrapolated.

“I work for him as a special investigator,” Will explained. “He had to pull quite a few strings at the start, but the higher ups seem pleased enough with the results that they’re letting him keep using me.” Will dropped his gaze, staring fixedly at the table. “I did try, you know. To get into the academy.”

The room was silent, even the birds seemingly stopping and waiting. “What happened?” Hannibal asked, and if Will had looked up, he would have seen how enraptured he had become.

Will thought of college, he and Beverly, graduating at the top of his class with her right behind him. Thought of the exams, the tests, the interviews, the day she got in and he didn’t. The alcohol that followed, fleeing south, joining the police force in his home state of Louisiana and declining her calls until she showed up in person to rip him a new one. The knife in his shoulder that still didn’t move quite right, the job offer from someone who had taken notice of his skills and qualifications. Jack coming into his classroom with a string of corpses and trying to convince himself that his reaction was anything other than  _ finally. _ “I failed the psych eval.”

A phone rang, the shrill chirping Will recognized as Jack calling. “Shit,” he scrambled, standing up and sending his chair scraping back against the floor. “I’m sorry, this is Jack, I have to-”

“It is fine, Will,” Hannibal cut in, eyes understanding. “It comes with the territory.”

Will hurried out of the room, shutting the door to the sitting room behind him. “Graham,” he answered.

“Will, there’s a body,” Jack greeted, as usual. “I need you here now.”

“Where is it?” The address he was given was right in the middle of Baltimore, a place that revealed itself to be Preston Gardens when he punched it into his phone later. “Did they really find it in the middle of the day?”

“It took us this long to secure the scene,” Jack answered, sounding tired. “Think you can get here in an hour?”

Will almost said yes out of reflex, before remembering he wasn’t home. Hannibal’s place was much closer, no more than a fifteen minute drive from the city proper. “Twenty minutes, I think,” Will finally estimated. “I’m not at home,” he clarified, because he knew Jack would ask. “I’m much closer to Baltimore.”

“Get here when you can,” Jack ground out, and ended the call.

“I’m sorry,” Will said again immediately upon returning to the dining room. “I have to go. Work.”

“Do not apologize, Will.” Hannibal was standing, and he glanced down towards the nearly untouched meals. “I fear we have chewed more words than food. Would you like to take this with you?”

“Really?” Will was genuinely surprised at the offer, but quickly accepted. Soon, Hannibal presented him with the sandwich neatly wrapped in parchment paper, and a thermos filled with what he assumed to be the tea. He eyed it warily. “You don’t have to-”

“Nonsense,” Hannibal interjected. “We shall have to reschedule the tour for another time, and you can return it then.” He smiled. “I am glad that we met, even briefly.”

“Thank you.” Will took the offered items and wrapped one arm around them both. “This… the cases can take a while.” He struggled for the right words, not entirely sure of what he was trying to explain.

Hannibal seemed to understand nonetheless. “You must simply let me know when your life calms.”

At that, Will cocked a small smile of his own. “You’ll be waiting forever if that’s your criteria.”

“Calms enough,” Hannibal corrected, smiling in return. “Come, let me show you out.”

Will’s car didn’t have functional cupholders, so he wedged the thermos in between his jacket and the sandwich itself. He spent most of the drive wondering if Jack would yell at him for eating at a crime scene.

When he arrived, the mood was grim. The park was on a busy street in the middle of downtown, but they had blocked the traffic well enough that there were no civilians milling around. A large tent was erected around what was presumably the body, and Will made a beeline for it.

“Do we know who it is?” was his first question. Beverly turned to him and shook her head.

“I don’t think we’ll have an ID before we take it back,” she sighed. She scooted backwards to allow Will a better view of the body and he instantly understood why.

The head was missing.

“You ready?” Jack asked, materializing from what felt like nowhere. Will nodded slowly, eyes locked onto the corpse sprawled before him. It was naked, female, likely younger, and the head wasn’t the only thing missing.

“Sure,” Will answered, because it was the best answer he could give.

Jack called out and the tent emptied. Before he recreated it, Will crouched by the body, trying to prepare himself. No blood, so killed elsewhere and left here, which meant the posing was important. There were star shapes burned into her skin on what seemed to be specific parts of her body, the joints in particular. He was afraid of falling too deep again.

But he could not wait forever. He stepped back, closed his eyes, and saw the golden pendulum swing.

When he opens his eyes he sees the same blank room with the same ugly grate. Distantly, he knows this isn’t the actual kill room but a proxy, a safe place for him to carry out his- no,  _ not _ his- crimes.

He is referencing something, but only mentally. The girl looks up at him but her head is simply a blank canvas of flesh, featureless and bald. Beside him, a brand. There are extra pieces he needs to trim, but he will do this step first, as she will surely die soon after he cuts her into the correct shape. The handle of the brand was shortened, allowing him to work more precisely, and he wears a thick glove meant to handle the heat that seeps through. He presses it to her flesh, the center of her collarbones, and it sizzles like bacon in a pan. The stench of burning flesh fills the air and he wants to recoil but his control stops him from doing so. When he pulls the brand away, strips of melting flesh come with it.

The brands are placed at the elbows and knees, though he rotates the limbs to ensure they will be in the right spot once the body is positioned. Then, the wrists and right ankle. He wishes he could hear what he screaming had sounded like.

The branding iron vanishes, and now he holds a bone saw. He holds her left leg down, sits on her torso as she thrashes, sad he cannot see her expression but more concerned with the accuracy of his design. The saw cuts in nicely, blood pouring from the wound, and he saws down with the confidence of someone who has done this many times before. It catches on the bone and he bears down harder, reveling in the wet squelching of the blood and meat surrounding the crisp separation of the bone itself. The leg detaches and he sets it aside, onto a tarp he has prepared, and turns to face his victim.

She is not moving much, now. He can leave it here, but it wouldn’t be quite right, and Will strives for perfection. Her head will have to go. He brings the saw to her neck and the flesh parts like butter, rivers of red flowing out her body and into the drain below. The vertebrae try to halt his progress but he slots the saw between two and wrenches it to the side, gasping when blood flies up to hit him in the face. He wants to taste it.

Will startles himself out of the vision early, unable to allow it to continue. He saw enough and can deduce the rest himself. Weakly, he calls for Jack before sitting on the ground, hard.

“Will?” Jack sounds genuinely concerned when reenters the tent and sees the profiler on the ground. He turns and stops anyone else from entering, then crouches down to speak to the rattled man.

“I fell again,” is all Will says, trying to shake the overpowering hunger that has fallen over him.

“I need to ask,” Jack says lowly. “Did you get anything first?”

“It’s him,” Will whispers, staring resolutely at the grass. “It’s a constellation. The parts are missing because they were extraneous.”

“Katz!” Jack yells, and she enters the tent as well, eyes widening when she sees Will. “Take Graham back to Quantico. Look for people into stargazing, try to get an ID before the labs do.”

She nods, and with Jack’s help they haul Will to his feet. “C’mon, Will,” she tells him. “Give me your keys. I’ll drive.”

Somehow, they get back to Will’s car and end up safely inside it. When he is close enough to his version of normal, he finds they are still parked, the thermos is in his lap, and Beverly is eating his sandwich. 

“Hey,” he protests weakly. “That’s not yours.”

“This is really, really good,” she moans around a bite of the sandwich. “Where did you get this?”

“A Vietnamese place nearby. I’m not telling you where it is.”

She hands him the sandwich, a false grin plastered on her face. “I was hoping me eating your food would piss you off enough that you’d snap out of it, and it looks like I was right. You promise you aren’t gonna barf this up?”

Will nods, and she hands the food back over to him. He takes a bite, and it helps him refocus, bring him fully back to reality. “I’m not telling you,” he reiterates, knowing she will press him. “It’s my secret spot.”

“So secret they make you bring your own beverages?” She looks pointedly at the thermos, the glaring flaw in Will’s lie.

“Yes,” is all he answers with. “Now get us out of here.”

“I’ll find it,” she says, starting the car. “You know I will.”

_ I’d like to see you try, _ Will thinks to himself, eating the rest of the sandwich in silence and trying his hardest not to think about the taste of blood.

When Beverly pulls off the freeway it’s not the exit for Quantico, and Will frowns. “We’re not headed back towards work,” he points out.

Beverly shrugs beside him. “Jack will be stuck at the scene for a long time and we can work from your house just fine. Don’t need to archives of the FBI to identify an Instagrammer.”

“You think it’s someone off Instagram?” Will agreed, but he knew Beverly could provide more insight as to why. The deductions he made were frequently huge leaps in logic, but Beverly had always been there to walk it backwards and plot out the path in a way people would understand, sometimes even helping Will himself figure out more about how his brain worked.

“He said to look up stargazers, right? Anyone who’s focused on photography will be on Insta. They’re a dime a dozen over there.”

Will tips his head back against the seat and groans. “So it’ll take a while to find the right one.”

“I’ve got some ideas already,” Beverly laughed. “Besides, you’re not gonna be looking for the victim anyways. You should figure out what the constellation was and why he picked it, unless you already know.”

At that, Will winced and looked out the window. “I forced myself out of it early,” he admitted, voice low.

The car pulled up to a red light, and Beverly took the opportunity to turn and face Will. “You forced- Will, how deep did you  _ go? _ ”

“I hate being treated like this,” Will murmured.

“Like a child?” Beverly guessed.

“Like I’m fragile,” Will corrected.

Beverly sighed, and dropped her head to the steering wheel, forehead resting on the top. “You know, anyone else with your condition would probably shut themselves away and never leave their room. God knows I would. But you can control it, and even weaponize it. You’re the furthest thing from fragile I can think of.”

“If I can control it, why do I keep falling into the minds of serial killers?”

A car honked behind them, and Beverly snapped upright, pulling the car forwards through the green light. “Actually,” she began, voice thick with consideration. When Will looked at her, he saw her brows were furrowed, a look of intense concentration on her face. “Before this one, it was only the Ripper, right?”

“Yeah,” Will confirmed, brain already whirling around the possibility he knew Beverly was about to suggest.

“What if it’s not ‘killers’ you get lost in, but just ‘killer’?”

Will thought, long and hard, before finally replying. “If this new killer is just the Ripper trying something new, why am I- why only now?”

Beverly hummed thoughtfully. “He could be pretending to be a new killer, someone starting from scratch, yeah? So he’d intentionally start off sloppy and refine them as he goes. Maybe he’s just started slipping and letting his true nature show through.”

Factually, it did make sense. Everyone agreed that the kills officially attributed to the Chesapeake Ripper could not possibly be the only ones the killer had ever done; the sheer level of skill and planning that went into them proved otherwise. While the Ripper often went quiet for years at a time, Will had always wondered if the man could truly resist his urges for that long, and the possibility of other killer personas had always sat at the back of his mind. He would not tell anyone, but he kept a mental list of other killers who had never been caught that could be the Ripper under another name. “The displays, theatricality, and brutality… it makes more sense then it has any right to.”

“Should we tell Jack?”

Will bit his lower lip. They should, but he didn’t want to. “No,” he finally said. “We have no evidence past speculation, and you know how he gets about the Ripper.”

“We’ll just keep it in mind then.” The rest of the drive to Will’s house, they were silent.

It took Will only five minutes to identify the constellation, so he left to tend to his garden and think while Beverly continued her research. The tomatoes, and there were  _ always _ tomatoes in the packets of seeds, had gotten lucky and sprouted early, clearing the crawling vines of squash well before they had truly formed. The leaves looked darker, somehow tough and worn, but when he touched them they were glossy and healthy. Maybe he had managed to get heirlooms this year, though he had no idea how such an expensive plant had gotten mixed in with the cheapest seeds sold. 

The squash plant was looking healthy as well. Last year, he had lost a lot of plants in this location, mixing them into the soil and enriching it. He often looked for spots like these to plant the broad, flat seeds whenever he found them, knowing that some would need the extra nutrients to grow. It was still too early to tell exactly what variety he had come across, but his guess at the moment was pumpkin. Hopefully gophers wouldn’t be a problem this year.

When he returned to his house, Winston trailing behind him, he found Beverly rooting through his fridge. “You’ve got nothing to eat, man,” she sighed, closing the door. “Don’t you ever cook anything beyond frozen meals?”

He went to the sink, washing his hands and face in it before speaking. “I cook my vegetables when they’re ready.”

“Okay, so like one month out of the year, got it. You have  _ got  _ to eat something besides frozen burritos, Will.”

Will dried his hands and face before turning to see Beverly eyeing him with her arms crossed. “You ID the body yet?”

She sighed again, but traveled back to where she had set up her laptop on his wooden desk. “Not my first hunch, but my second.” She sat down, turning the computer towards Will, who had followed after her. “Daisy Renolds, a somewhat famous star photographer. She had a scandal about a year ago where she was actually arrested for damaging some ruins in South America while trying to set up the perfect shot.”

Will frowned. “Well, the constellation is Virgo, the more simplified version. I can’t quite place why, or why specifically the brands. Is she known for being a virgin?”

“Absolutely not,” Beverly snorted. “Virgo’s pretty big in mythology, right? Isn’t it related to Persephone?”

“Maybe she posted less in the winter,” Will muttered. “It’s better than what I’ve got, anyways. Let’s call Jack.”

“After I order food,” Beverly interjected, pulling out her phone.

“No one delivers out here.”

“Not officially,” and Will saw her opening some sort of third-party delivery service app. “I’ll make sure to tip them really well.”

“After food, then,” Will agreed, and they spent a while arguing over what exactly they were going to order in the first place.

Not much time had passed before Will found himself texting Hannibal again. It had been the tomatoes, of all things, that had triggered it. They invaded his thoughts frequently, not because of the plants themselves, but because he knew he now had someone he could actually ask about them.  _ I know vegetables aren’t your specialty,  _ the text had begun,  _ but do you think there’s a chance these could be heirlooms? _

_ Possibly,  _ the answer had come.  _ They do indeed look the part, but there is no way to know until the plant bears fruit. You would be quite lucky to have gotten them in your mystery packets, Will.  _

Within the week, they had rescheduled the tour of Hannibal’s gardens, and the following Sunday Will was driving up in the afternoon to see the flowers. As requested, he parked at the house and walked further down, past the fields of blue followed by purple, into the final plots he had known of but never seen. It was hot, and he found himself untucking his shirt from his pants and rolling the sleeves up past his elbows.

He almost missed Hannibal because the man was dressed down, presumably in consideration of the walk through the flowers. His shirt, while still a button-up, was a deep crimson, and he wore black slacks and worn black shoes with it. Will did not dwell on how broad his shoulders were, or how the shirt pulled tight across his upper body.

“Black seems dangerous in this weather,” Will greeted, after Hannibal had caught his eye and nodded in welcoming. 

“You seem to have worn long sleeves, so I suppose we are both fools,” Hannibal answered with a sly smile. 

“Can’t argue that.” Will looked around, towards the explosion of color just beyond them, then back at Hannibal. “Why back here? Any particular reason?”

“While we are famous for our uniformly colored blossoms, I have something of a soft spot for the wilder varieties, and had a hunch that you would feel similarly. Besides, this road leads nowhere, and most trespassers do not chance driving past the estate and drawing attention to themselves. We likely will not be interrupted.”

The final fields, while still organized, were large stripes of multicolored flowers instead of solid blocks of a single color. Each row was a new variety, and Will saw everything from brilliant white begonias ringed with pink to petunias striped with yellow and a maroon so dark it was nearly black. “I am curious to see what catches your eye.” Will turned, and saw the small smile had not left Hannibal’s face. “Please, ask me whatever you desire.”

Somehow, it felt like a challenge, or a test. Will let his eyes roam over vibrant gazanias, past something that looked like a cross between a hibiscus and morning glory, and landed on a strange flower he had never seen before. It looked almost like some sort of large insect was pretending to be a flower but the colors were vibrant and fluid, a deep blue fading away into white and spotted with burgundy speckles, a bright yellow coloring the base of the petals themselves. “This is incredible,” he murmured, leaning closer to inspect it further.

“Toad Lily,” Hannibal supplied, and based on his tone Will could not tell if he had passed the mysterious test or failed. “A very unusual looking flower, but capable of producing colors just as spectacular as it’s more palatable cousins, if not more so.”

Will straightened, and looked on down the strip of flowers. It appeared to be toad lillies all the way to the end, but the colors varied wildly among them, such a large mix of colors that he almost couldn’t believe they were real. “I didn’t think anything could look like this.” When he turned back towards Hannibal once more, the man looked thoughtful.

“Come, follow me. There is something towards the back I feel you will appreciate.” The larger man stepped onto one of the dirt pathways running through the flowers and Will followed, unable to stop his head from moving from side to side as he took in all the blossoms around him. Finally, they got to the end of the plot, where many low-growing flowers had been hidden behind the taller plants that made up the majority of the fields. Hannibal gestured down, and Will’s eyes followed.

The petals were long scoops, white on the back and laced with thin stripes of a brilliant lavender on the inside. On the outer petals the lines would blend together, solidifying into a thick purple wedge, while on the inner it spread out in a feathered pattern, adorning both the inside and outside of the petal itself. Sprouting from the center were vivid orange stamen, flared at the top so severely they almost looking like smaller flowers growing out of the center of the larger ones. “Giant Crocus,” Hannibal explained, crouching beside Will, who had lowered himself without entirely realizing it. “The solid varieties grow at the backs of their respective fields, but I cannot deny how striking the multicolored strains can be.”

“It’s beautiful,” Will replied, unable to keep the smile off his face. “All of them are.”

Hannibal stood, holding out his hand to help Will up off the ground next to him. “What would you like to see next?” he asked.

Will looked across the sea of colors and answered honestly. “All of it.”

They lost track of time, the both of them, going methodically through the final fields, and only stopped when Hannibal glanced at his watch and realized how late it had gotten. “We should be returning,” he said gently, motioning to the house. “While I have given Chiyoh instructions on how to prepare the roast in the event I am not able, I would prefer to see to it myself.” When Will tilted his head slightly in confusion, Hannibal continued. “My assistant, Chiyoh. I believe she greeted you at the door when you came here with your boss on more official business.”

At that, Will nodded, letting the fact that Hannibal had apparently saw fit to prepare an entire roast slip by him. They had not actually discussed plans for dinner afterwards, but Will had assumed Hannibal would have something in mind, apparently correctly. Carefully, they extracted themselves from the fields, and began the walk back to the house proper.

They were halfway through this side of the blue when the wind picked up, blowing the scent towards the pair, and Will stopped and turned his head towards it. Hannibal stopped beside him. “I often come here, to this field, when things get to be too much.”

“It’s like the ocean,” Will murmurs, feeling a pull towards the flowers before him.

Beside him, Hannibal studies Will, who is only looking forward. “If you would like, you may explore them, while I go ahead.”

“What?” Will startled. “No, I’m not going to ditch you to wander around.”

“It will take awhile for me to finish dinner, and I’m afraid it would be quite boring for you regardless. Simply meet me back at the house when you are finished.”

“I-” Will looked at the flowers, the endless expanse of blue. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Hannibal smiled. “Of course,” he said, and then Hannibal walked towards the house and Will stepped out into the water.

He walked slowly, barely registering the individual blossoms, seeing only the expanse of blue. It felt dream-like, like he was walking through a broad but shallow lake, the glimpses of dirt little fish flitting around him. He looked, over to where the house sat in the distance, hovering on the surface of the water, and watched as Hannibal glided across like a swan before he vanished into the house itself. Now alone, Will turned his head forwards once more, walking towards the sun where it was threatening to begin setting. A gust of wind blew through once more, and Will closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

When he opened his eyes once more, he was standing in a small rowboat, floating along a deep ocean. He sat, ran his fingers along the material of the boat, a shining, polished bone. The water he drifted through was a rich ruby, impossibly bright, and stank of iron. Ahead, he saw a shape in the water, and he seized the oars and paddled towards it, needing to know what it was. Every time the oars rose above the water they were tangled in thick ropes of intestine. Fish jumped out of the water around him, livers and kidneys and lungs leaping like they had a life of their own. The stink, the stench of blood thickened as he went. The shape formed into a lump, a small protrusion from the water, a powder blue hunch slowly being dyed red from the blood gushing from it’s back. “No,” Will whispered, rowing faster. It sank before him, falling into the depth of the water, just barely missing the tips of his outstretched fingers as he lunged forwards to try and grasp it. Frantic, he plunged his arms into the water, closing his hands like a vice when they connected with something solid and hauling it to the surface. 

One of the organ fish thrashed in his grip. Furious, he squeezed it, crushing the life out of it until it moved no more. It sat limp in his grip, and Will was suddenly, terribly hungry. The water broke before him, something rising to the surface, black pointed spires resolving into antlers. They were attached to a large, pitch-black figure, something that looked like the blank template of a man. It stopped once it’s waist breached the water, leaving it face to face with Will. A taloned hand reach forward to pull the dead fish from Will’s shaking grasp, raising it to it’s lips and swallowing it in one fluid motion.

Will fell backwards, scrambling away from the monster, but his back soon met the edges of the boat and he could flee no further. It leaned towards him, hand coming forward once more, the tips of its wicked claws brushing against his chin.

Something very real curled around his jaw and Will gasped back to life. This time, when he opened his eyes he met Hannibal’s, nearly tipping over if not for the steadying hand on his face. “Will,” Hannibal said, low and soothing. “It’s alright.”

“W-where-” Will gasped, eyes tracking around rapidly. He saw the flowers, much lower down than he remembered, and the sun setting in the distance. “How long has it been?”

“When you had not returned within the hour, I came looking for you.” Seemingly confident Will could stand on his own, Hannibal released his grip on the other man. “Is everything all right?”

Will did not know how to answer that. “I’ll be fine,” he said instead. “I’m sorry.”

“Come.” Hannibal straightened up from where he had been leaning across the row of flowers separating them. “Let us go inside before the sun sets.”

Meekly, Will followed Hannibal out of the fields and all the way into his home. He eagerly escaped to the bathroom Hannibal showed him to, splashing water on his face and trying to calm his thundering heart before joining the other man in the dining room. No matter what he did, he could not shake the feeling of the organ fish weakening within his grip, thrashing as it died. 

It wasn’t real, but it wasn’t anyone else’s either. Will was steady when he entered the dining room.

They talked normally, and the food was exquisite, but all Will remembered from the dinner was how much better he imagined the roast would have tasted if he had been the one to kill it.


	3. I Love You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will is invited to a festival, and doesn't really get the chance to say no.

The next day, Will woke early to tend to his garden, and returned to an odd text from Beverly.  _ I’m coming over, _ it said.  _ I’ll bring food so you better let me in. _

Thirty minutes later, she was there. “This one wasn’t frozen,” she joked, tossing Will a breakfast burrito. It was good, somewhat spicy, and Will was feeling a lot more like a human when he was finished.

“So what’s the occasion?” Will asked once they had finished. Beverly would drop by unannounced frequently when they were younger, but nowadays it was a pretty rare occurrence.

“Okay, so…” She trailed off, hesitation evident on her face.

“Just say it,” Will groaned.

“You know how I made accounts to follow a bunch of possible victims when we first realized this killer was more than a one-off thing?” Will nodded. “Well, when I checked them this morning… you popped up.”

Will furrowed his brow. “I don’t have any social media accounts,” he protested, because he didn’t. 

“No it… okay, so there are people who run accounts dedicated to posting photos of strangers they take. Hot ones, specifically.”

It clicked into place. “What, and I’m in the background of one or something? I’m not in WITSEC or anything, so I’m not sure why this is a big deal.”

The look Beverly gave him could have killed his entire garden. “You’re the entire post, dumbass, and on probably the worst account possible. The commenters regularly dox the subjects.”

“Doxxing is…” Will’s brain spun, trying to ignore the larger issue to focus on the smaller ones. “When they post personal information, right?”

“You got it,” Beverly confirmed. “The person running the account doesn’t stop it at all. She says halfhearted things like ‘please keep the subjects anonymous’ and then does absolutely nothing to enforce it.”

“How did they even get photos of me?” Will wondered aloud. “It’s not like I get out much.”

“Oh, don’t worry, they definitely took them without your knowledge.” Beverly grimaced. “Look, I’m telling you this for two reasons. One, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to get identified and possibly harassed because of this. Two…” She paused, hesitant once more. “This girl is a prime candidate for our killer, and if it does happen, Brian, Jimmy, and  _ Jack _ are all going to see these pictures of you, along with who knows how many other people. I didn’t want you to get surprised by these.”

“They’re just photos, right?” Will could practically hear the teasing from Brian and Jimmy already, but it’s not like it was anything serious.

Beverly pulled out her laptop, flipped it open, and clicked around until she found what she was looking for. “Take a look while I use your bathroom,” she suggested, handing the laptop over and fleeing the room with astonishing speed. Will stared after her, trying to determine what caused her reaction, before shaking his head and immediately finding out.

They were from the day before, that much was obvious from the countless blue flowers behind him and the red flannel he had worn. In the first shot, he was running his hand through his hair, head tilted down, clearly speaking to someone- telling Hannibal he didn’t want to abandon him, from what he remembered. Next was him further in the fields, staring out towards Hannibal’s house, an unreadable expression on his face, eyes distant. It jumped forwards then, a photo of him following Hannibal out if the fields, eyes locked onto the other man’s back where he was just out of frame. Back then, to him walking slowly through the fields, back to the photographer, hands spread and resting just above the flowers, the wind blowing the ends of his shirt behind him, hair tousled in the wind. The last one, when he saw it, froze him in place.

It was a close up of his face in profile, mouth parted in a gasp, eyes half-closed, Hannibal’s strong fingers curled around his jaw.

Unbidden, his eyes shot to the comments, which he regretted almost instantly.

_ omgomgomgomg _

_ wow!!! so hot _

_ I wish he was staring at me lol _

_ That’s a dude’s hand, isn’t it? _

_ the flowers are so pretty!!! they match his eyes _

_ holy fuck can you imagine the faces this guy would make when- _

He slammed the laptop shut, just in time for Beverly to emerge. “Hey!” she chided, pulling the laptop out of Will’s clawed grip. “Be careful!”

“What fucking zoom lens does this lady have?” he spat. “I didn’t see anyone that entire time.”

“You sure you weren’t just distracted?” Will stiffened, and when he looked at Beverly, she had the most falsely innocent look on her face that Will had seen in his entire life.

The real reason she had come over was now apparent. While she was correct in that Will needed to know about his photos, she easily could have just done this over text or email, but if she was physically here then he couldn’t run away from the questions that came next. “Beverly-” Will began, trying to cut her off before she got into it.

It didn’t work. “You know, I’ve looked into Vietnamese places within a twenty mile radius of the crime scene, tried ‘em all. None of them came close to that bánh mì I snuck a bite of. I’m sure Hannibal would be very disappointed with your dietary choices, considering he can make food like that.”

“We’re not dating,” Will rushed out, jumping right to the point. 

“Uh-huh.” Beverly sounded incredibly unimpressed, and rolled her eyes. “How many times have you eaten with him?”

“Only three!” Will protested, realizing immediately how stupid it sounded. “Two of them barely counted.”

“Please, enlighten me as to why,” Beverly smirked. She plopped down on his bed, waiting.

Suddenly, her phone rang, and Will nearly wept with relief. She shot him a look that indicated that this was very much not over. “Katz,” she answered, and Will wondered if they had learned how to answer the phone from each other or arrived at the same result independently. “Got it.” Silence, while the person on the other line spoke. “Actually, I’m with him right now. We’ll be there in forty minutes.”

“Jack?” Will asked, once she ended the call.

“You got lucky this time,” she sighed, shoving her laptop back in it’s carrier bag. “Another body, just outside of town. I’ll drive again, so go get ready.”

Will slipped away to do just that, thankful that the conversation had been cut short but not for the reason why.

The property they approached had clearly been abandoned for a long time. A two-story house sat in the center of a wide area that had been overgrown with vines and grass, the foliage nearly hiding how deeply the building had fallen into disrepair. At the front, a circle had been neatly cut into the wild grass, ensuring the body it contained was on display for all to see.

“Who found it?” Will murmured, inching towards the kneeled corpse. Her hair fell behind her back, stray strands being blown onto the open rib cage by the wind. 

“Urban explorers,” Jack scoffed. “It’s pure luck that it got found so quickly. You ready?”

Will nodded, and Jack removed everyone from the scene, leaving Will and the corpse alone. Her body is kneeling, ribs pulled outward, and an arm curves under them to hold a golden arrow pointed directly at her heart.

He didn’t want to reconstruct it, if he was being honest with himself. He was afraid of drowning again. But he had to, and so he closed his eyes.

He wakes in the familiar room, not in the least surprised to find himself here. A woman sits before him, sprawled lazily in a manner suggesting he had drugged her earlier. He would like her to be awake, but not enough to fight what is happening. First, then, he picks the scalpel, cuts a deep line down the center of her chest, taking care not to nick her organs in the process. She laughs as he cuts, too far gone to experience any pain. He finishes the y-incision and then makes two additional cuts just below the bottommost ribs, leaving himself the room he needs to free them from their prison. Carefully, almost gingerly, he slides his bare fingers into the main incision, impossible warmth enveloping his fingers, the twitching squelch of organs just beneath his fingertips. It feels wonderful, in here, but he needs to continue his original plan. He hooks a hand to the side, feeling the ribs under his grip, braces his other hand on the remaining side of her chest, and uses all his strength to pull.

The rib cage buckles outwards, the flesh he had not quite freed tearing with it. He pulls further, only stopping when they have cracked and shattered to the point of being useless, nothing but the attached flesh they have sunk into keeping them in place. She laughs again, more maniacal this time, and soon he has the other side pulled outwards as well, exposing her slick insides for the world to see. Beside him, a golden arrow sits. He collects it, determines precisely how it should be held, but then his eyes fall down to her cracked-open torso once more. There, nestled between her quivering lungs, he sees her heart.

Will throws the arrow across the room and dives down, plunging his hands into her chest until her heart rests between them. He squeezes, feels the organ give beneath his grip, until the organ pops between his fingers and a fountain of blood shoots up to cover him.

When Will wrenches himself awake he is on the ground, mid-scramble to get away from the body. Even subconsciously, he knew he shouldn’t have been near it at that moment. He nearly calls for Jack, but then pauses, a dark thought crossing his mind. He crawls forward, placing himself before the corpse, and peers inside, past the point of the golden arrow, and sees the hearts is whole and untouched.

Now, he calls Jack, sitting down hard on the grass. He tries his hardest to calm himself, look as presentable as possible, not think about what happened. 

Evidently, he succeeded, as Jack asked him what he saw immediately. Will knows he cannot tell him, so he does something he is exceptionally talented at; he lies.

“I’m not entirely sure about the specific meaning of the arrow,” he began, which was close to the truth since he had no idea whatsoever. “I know that it’s related to love.”

“There were a lot of rumours about her leading people on,” Beverly provided, phone in her hand. “I guess we can safely say that they’re true at this point.”

“Cupid’s arrow?” Jack suggests. “He got so sick of her making a mockery of love that he just shot her dead instead.”

“Or tried,” Will added, pointing to the hand holding the arrow. “Maybe she caught it instead. We’re going to have to figure this one out on our own, I’m sorry to say.”

“Why open the chest?” Beverly crouched beside Will, pocketing her phone. “We probably would have gotten the message without seeing the literal heart.”

Will had seen it, when he looked inside, and he knew they would find it later. The tip of the arrow was piercing the heart, only just. It was important. He did not mention it. “Dramatic flair,” he said instead, and Beverly snorted.

“A solid gold arrow isn’t exactly inconspicuous.” Price approached now, and the trio backed up to give him access to the body. 

Zeller was close behind. “Wonder how much it’s worth?”

“The arrow is our best chance at a lead,” Jack said, looking at Beverly and Will. “You two, look into it, see if anyone forged or bought a golden arrow recently. I doubt it’s newly made, but we should still look into it before we send it to be dated.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Beverly replied, saluting Jack, who simply shook his head. “Let’s go, Neveu.” 

It took Will a moment to realize she was speaking to him. “Why are  _ you _ Robert Langdon?”

“Which one of us is the sexy brunette who’s secretly connected to everything?”

They reached the car, and Will slid into the passenger’s seat. “If this is about those photos-”

Beverly closed the door behind her, and immediately the mood changed. “Why were you lying to Jack?” 

Will blinked, readjusting to the abrupt change in topics. “I wasn’t,” he lied.

“Bullshit. Are you okay, Will? Did you go too deep again?” Will looked away. “Oh my god. You didn’t know what the arrow meant because you didn’t even get that far. Will, this is only going to get worse if you don’t do something about it.”

“Do what?” Will cut in, more terse than he intended. “I’ll be fine, Beverly.”

She looked at him like she did not believe him in the slightest, but let it drop and started the car. The drive back to Quantico was done in silence. 

The search for the arrow turned up nothing, like Will had assumed it would. If they were really dealing with the Ripper there was no way the man would use such a unique object if he wasn’t confident it could not be traced back to him. As such, things died down, with no new leads or bodies turning up, and Will turned his energy back towards his garden. Some of the vegetables were peeking through, the tomatoes in particular producing oddly colored balls that raised his hopes of heirlooms even further. It wouldn’t be much longer until he knew for sure, and even sooner after until they would be ready to harvest. Beneath them, the squash was stretching out, speckled green like a watermelon but long like a zucchini. Butternut Squash, possibly, or something similar. Maybe he could make soup with it.

Across the garden, on the other side, the unmistakable leafy shoots of carrots sprouted beside the thinner stalks of onions. No potatoes this year, thankfully, as he always seemed to miss some and found them hiding among the new plants the following spring. They were hardy vegetables, capable of surviving the cold grip of winter and emerging again after the thaw, and on one memorable occasion this had resulted in such a large and twisted vegetable that Will had been afraid to eat it and simply thrown the poor thing away. He hadn’t even used it for compost, worried it would spring back to life and turn his entire garden into one giant potato.

Once he had finished and washed up, he noticed a text notification on his phone, from Hannibal. He unlocked his phone, read the message, and froze.  _ While the festival proper does not begin until 10AM, I will be there from 6 to assist with setting up. You are welcome to come earlier if you would like to do so. _

He didn’t have the faintest idea what Hannibal was talking about. A festival? Had Hannibal texted the wrong person, or had they made plans over the dinner he did not remember? Committing to an event while dissociating and subsequently forgetting about it was a new low, even for Will. He opened the browser and was furiously searching for anything it could possibly be about when another text arrived like a dove with an olive leaf in its mouth.  _ Let me know if you need the address, Will. _

_ I can come early and help you,  _ Will sent back, because it was the sort of thing he would normally do.  _ I’m sure I could find it, but it would probably be faster for you to send me the address just to be safe. _

Hannibal sent it to him as requested, and now Will could discover what he had truly gotten himself into, which was good since the rest of the text read  _ I do not believe there would be anything for you to do before 8, unless you would like to help some of the vendors begin cooking. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. _

He found it, easily, and it was something along the lines of what he expected. A flower festival, organized by Lecter Estates to highlight the efforts of amateur botanists and the local community in general. There even appeared to be a contest with alarmingly large prize winnings. For that much, Will briefly wondered if he should take up growing flowers himself.

He considered texting Beverly, telling her what he had apparently done, but decided it would do nothing but concern her and kept it to himself.

When he arrived the next day, people were milling to and fro, setting up booths and huge structures that seemed almost too complex for a single day event. Hannibal spotted him before he had the chance to do the reverse, walking over to meet him with a small wave. He was dressed quite casually, in a white button-up and khakis, much more comfortable to move in. “Hello, Will,” he greeted, eyes pleased. “I am glad you were able to make it.”

Will had very deliberately not dwelled on what would have happened if Hannibal hadn’t contacted him the day before and he had simply not turned up. Likely an immediate end to whatever their relationship was, and Will hated the thought. “What can I help with?” he asked, pushing the thought out of his mind. 

“You wouldn’t happen to have a secret talent for flower arranging, would you?” The way the corner of Hannibal’s mouth ticked up indicated he already knew the answer.

“God no,” Will laughed. “Just give me things to lift.”

Hannibal directed him over to the currently empty area where the contestants would house their plants. They would begin arriving around nine, he had said, and they could use some extra hands to get the tables and benches ready in time. It was easy work, simple manual labor, something Will had plenty of experience with. He was very good at detailed work and soon found himself stolen away from the cheap wooden tables he was assembling to put together the complex tiered shelving some of the volunteers were having trouble with. They had the area set up just before nine, and he was about to move on when someone caught his elbow. 

It was a younger woman, straight brown hair framing wide wide blue eyes. “Hey, uh…” she began, obviously hesitant. “I know you’re just sort of helping whoever, but do you think you could give us a hand with checking the contestants in? It’s always kind of a clusterfuck, and I don’t have high hopes for some of the volunteers after seeing them try to put that shelving together.”

His eyes flicked down, saw the embroidery on her shirt indicating she actually worked for Hannibal despite her young age. “Uh,” he started, not particularly wanting to help but unable to think of a reason to say no. “Yeah, sure.”

“Thank god,” she sighed, and led him over to the check-in tables. “We’ll hand you the labels, and you just have to take them to where their flowers go and wait for them to set it up how they like before coming back for more. There should be labels on the spots themselves and it should all be pretty straightforward, assuming we’ve set it up right. Thank you so much for helping us… what was your name?”

“Will.” He held out his hand, and the young girl shook it.

“Abigail,” she introduced. “Are you volunteering?”

“Sort of?” She looked like she wanted to ask him to clarify, but then the entrants started to arrive and they had no more time to chat.

It was a simple job, at least for Will. Once he got his first look at the labeling system he found each spot easily, and spent most of his time waiting patiently for the contestant to carefully arrange their flowers to their liking. Most were potted, still live and growing, but some that had obviously come from much larger or unwieldy plants were only the cut flowers in beautiful vases. They all looked amazing to Will, and he had no idea how the judges were supposed to choose winners.

He was handed another label, glancing at the location before looking back up to the person he would next be guiding. It was an elegant looking woman, clad in a crisp black pantsuit with a red undershirt, her red hair tied up in a bun. What stopped him were the flowers she was holding. Begonias, he would guess, but they were larger than usual and such a deep blood red that he almost thought they were fake. “Hello?” she said, snapping Will out of his reverie, and he was relieved to see that she only looked faintly amused and not irritated when he looked back up.

“Sorry,” Will rushed out, guiding her to her spot. He wanted to compliment her, tell her how impressive her flowers were, but he was simply too embarrassed to do so.

“Don’t worry,” she said casually, turning her pot back and forth to find the right angle. “I’m flattered that someone working here was so impressed with my flowers that they got lost in them.”

Will handed her the label, to let her place it as she pleased. “Well, I don’t know much about flowers so don’t get too excited,” he admitted. “I can tell that yours are something unique, though. Good luck.”

She smiled at him, and then left, and only later did Will realize that her lipstick matched her flowers perfectly.

Hannibal arrived as the line of entrants was winding down, just before the festival opened. “I must admit, I was not expecting to find you still here,” he murmured, glancing at the crowds of people fussing about. “Some of the entrants can be... difficult.”

“Abigail talked me into it,” Will answered. While some of the people he had dealt with had been obviously anxious, no one had snapped at him, thankfully. 

“She is quite good at that, is she not?” The smile Hannibal wore was almost fond, and Will wondered what she had done to catch his eye. He caught her attention, and when she saw the two of them standing together, her eyes widened slightly. “Abigail, do you think you can release Will from his duties?” Hannibal called out.

“Y-yeah, we should be fine,” she replied, startled.

Hannibal turned back to Will, satisfied. “Well then, shall we explore?”

It had been a long time since Will had been to any sort of fair or festival, to the point where the experience was almost novel. Stalls of food lined the area, all local vendors from the look of it, and they made their way there first. Hannibal assured him that they were all of the highest quality but then made such an instant beeline for a specific stall that Will followed suit and ordered the same sausage dish the other man purchased. Once they had eaten, Will found himself guided back to the shaded area he had helped set up, and they walked amongst the flowers.

“Should you really be looking at these ahead of time, Mr Head Judge?” Will teased. 

“I encourage all the judges to look ahead of time,” Hannibal countered, pausing in front of the red begonias Will recognized. He moved on. “It is helpful to get a feel for what the entries are like before we look more closely. Are there any that stand out to you, Will?”

“I don’t think I’m qualified to be a judge,” Will laughed, but Hannibal did not follow.

“I am simply interested in your opinion.”

“Well, uh…” Will trailed off, looking around. He almost went back to the begonias when something else caught his eye and he walked over. Frowning, he bent over, studying them. They were cut, sitting in a vase patterned with bats and moons. The flowers themselves were long tubes ending in two wide red petals, sprouting off something that resolved into a muzzle, eyes, and teeth when viewed at the right angle. “Are these real?”

Hannibal joined him in peering down at the snarling hounds. “Ah, bat-faced cuphea. A very unusual entry.”

Will craned his neck to the side. From another angle, they simply looked like flowers. The optical illusion was incredible. “Maybe I would have grown flowers instead if I had known they made ones that looked like dogs,” he muttered, and when he turned back to Hannibal, the other man was looking at him fondly.

They exited the contest area and Hannibal let Will lead them around, venturing towards whatever caught his eye. He drifted to the large arch of flowers at the western entrance, covered in spirals of small circular flowers in whites, purples and pinks. “These are all incredible,” Will commented, referring to the four arches at each end of the festival. He leaned closer, reaching out a hand to almost but not quite touch a flower ringed with white. “Especially this one. Who makes these?”

“I design them, though I regret to say that I no longer have the time to create them myself. My employees do that for me. I do, however, find it interesting that this particular arch caught your eye.”

Will rotated his head until he could see Hannibal behind him, a faint look of amusement on the other man’s face. “And why is that?”

“The flowers are sweet williams.”

Will dropped his hands away from the flowers like he had been stung. “You’re joking.”

Hannibal stepped forwards now, observing the flowers himself. “I assure you, I am not. They are less popular in arrangements, and so we often use them for projects such as this.”

“Well, they’re beautiful, even if they could be named better,” Will muttered. 

Beside him, Hannibal opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to say something, but it was cut off by a woman’s voice saying his name rather loudly. He tensed, then straightened, and turned to face the woman in question. “Mrs Komeda,” he greeted, and Will almost laughed at how fake his pleasure was.

The woman was short, hair a dark brown, severe bob, and she was dressed what was probably a bit too formally for this event. She had a young boy with her, dressed smartly, and Will slipped away before either of them could address him. He watched the interaction from a safe distance, buying some sort of fruity drink from a stall and then waiting until they were finished and Hannibal sought him out once more. “I’m a bit surprised to learn you’re not good with children,” Will said before Hannibal could cut in. 

Hannibal took the second drink when it was offered to him, eyebrows raised. “What is this?”

“An excuse, mostly. Tastes good though.” He cocked a grin. “I’m not good with kids either.”

The eyebrows on Hannibal’s face rose further, and Will wondered if he could get them to migrate off his face completely if he tried hard enough. “Then I suppose neither of us will be having children in the future.” 

Will almost opened his mouth to reply, but caught it as soon as he realized what he was about to say had been  _ I don’t think two men can have children together anyways, at least most of the time. _

He was saved the embarrassment when Hannibal simply continued. “Why would you say that I am not good with children?”

Silently, Will thanked whatever gods might be watching that Hannibal had asked that instead of  _ Why are you not good with kids?  _ “It, uh.” He stalled briefly, trying to determine how honest he should be. Eventually, he decided that Hannibal had likely noticed his empathy in some capacity already, and decided to go with the truth. “Body language helped, but I could… feel how unsteady you were. She seemed like an old friend, so I assumed it wasn’t because of her.”

A look crossed Hannibal’s face that Will had never seen before, something almost perfectly blank, like he was looking at a wall and not a man. It sent a shiver down his spine. “And how, pray tell, are you able to tell what emotions I am experiencing?”

“Empathy,” Will said simply. “No one knows quite what it is. I can’t read anyone’s mind or anything, but I… feel someone else’s emotions. It’s likely based on a lot of factors, everything from tone of voice to posture.”

“Does it ever overwhelm you?” Hannibal’s voice had lowered, like they were sharing a secret, and he was gradually leaning closer.

Will was suddenly aware of how far away from the crowds they had become. “Constantly,” he admitted, looking away. “Eye contact is difficult. I can fall into someone else’s mindset without meaning to.”

A finger touched his cheek, turning him back to face Hannibal, and he met the other man’s eyes. “What do you see now, Will?”

Will’s eyes widened, because what he saw was “Nothing.”

“There you are!” A woman’s voice rang out, and Will nearly jumped backwards out of shock. “Hannibal, I- oh! Will!”

They turned to face the woman, a brunette wearing a beautiful white sundress covered in yellow flowers. “Alana?” 

Hannibal glanced between the two, curious, and Will was thankful to see emotions once more. “Do you know each other?”

“Old acquaintances, you could say,” Alana answered easily. It was almost true- she had been Will’s therapist for a great while, after New Orleans, and had returned to clear him for active duty shortly after the incident with Hobbs. Hannibal surely knew what her job was, and might draw his own conclusions, but Will was not planning on sharing this information in the near future and was thankful for the deflection. “It’s nearly time to begin the judging.”

Hannibal glanced at his watch. “Ah, so it is.” He turned back to Will. “Alana here is also a judge for the competition, and we must go see the entrants and make a decision. Do not feel as if you have to stay for the entire event, but if you do, perhaps we can get dinner afterwards?”

That was brazen, and Will fought back the blush. He very deliberately did not look at Alana, unsure if he wanted to see her reaction. “I’m sure I can find something here to occupy my time,” he answered. “If I end up leaving early, I’ll let you know.”

“Then it is settled. Shall we?”

“It was good seeing you, Will,” Alana said before they left. “I hope that you are doing well.”

Will wished he had an answer as he watched them depart.

He managed to burn through an hour simply wandering around. Along the way, he stopped at some food stalls selling things much closer to junk food and loaded up, safely away from the prying eyes of a gourmet chef. It had been so long since he had been to a fair, and while this was not quite the same, the taste was close enough to bring the fond memories back. There were so many local vendors, and he was pleased to see ones for more general gardening, though he did not see anything from the little shop he frequented personally. Maybe he could buy some flower seeds and give it a shot himself.

In the end, he was tired from the morning, and decided to sit for a while. He found a table set up far in the back, out of the way, and made the mistake of closing his eyes, just for a moment.

When he opened them he was adrift. The festival was still set up around him, but all the stalls and flowers were floating askew along a red tide. The table he was at was mostly upright, and he knew he would be safe if he remained, but he had come here with someone and no one else knew how to survive in this ocean. He had to find Hannibal, and make sure he was safe.

His first thought was to paddle his destination, but sharp teeth bit into his fingertips the moment they sank into the water, and he jerked his hand away before more damage could be done. In the distance, he could make out the shape of the flower tent, floating safely upright like a large covered boat, so he knew Hannibal was at least safe for the moment. Tables and stalls floated along, and if he timed it right, he could surely jump between them and pick his way towards the ship. 

A stall drifted towards him. There was a person on it. They were crying out for help, begging Will to get them out of this hellish place, to lead them to safety. It wasn’t Hannibal, wasn’t even a person he recognized. There was no room for two people on their vessel. Will waited until it was close enough and then jumped, pushing the stranger out of the way and into the waters below. They screamed, and Will watched as the fish tore them to pieces.

The vessel tilted dangerously when Will had landed, but it remained upright, and by the time the fish had finished it was as steady as it had ever been. He caught glimpses of the creatures as they fed, deep reddish kidney-shaped creatures that opened their wide mouths to reveal rows of sharp teeth. There were many, huge swarms of them, and if he looked hard enough he could see them shimmering below the surface, gathering around the structures where people clang to what little safety they had.

Will used them like a path, pushing people off at every opportunity, feeding the creatures below. They worked with a frightening efficiency, biting away chunks of flesh and then tearing free the organs to fall below. Curiously, they did not seem to eat the organs themselves, and Will wondered if he would see them swimming if the schools of kidneys cleared away. He was nearly to the tent when the table he had jumped to sunk further into that water than he had anticipated, his foot slipping in as he struggled to right it. He felt them tearing away his shoe as he desperately crawled forwards, trying to balance the object and pull his whole body out of the sea, but the fish were faster and he screamed as he felt them tearing into his own flesh. Finally, he righted the table, and the fish did not follow as he yanked his mangled foot up out of the water.

His heel was intact, but several of his toes were missing, and the front half of his foot was close to shredded. He was so close, only a few jumps away from the tent, and there were no more people to complicate the maneuvers. He could not possibly give up now. Will stood, pain screaming through his body as he put pressure on his injured foot. There was no chance of him putting his weight on it when he jumped, not with the pain and the slippery blood it left, so he would have to land on it instead. The closest stall drifted by, and he jumped. 

The pain as he landed nearly made him black out, but he kept his entire body safely out of the water as he allowed himself time to calm, prepare himself for the next jump. It was only two away. His foot would be destroyed after this, he knew it would, but he made it to the next table and saw the open flap of the tent before him. It was just too far to crawl across, and so he stood, one final time, and jumped.

Will screamed as he landed inside, collapsing onto the floor of the ship. Weakly, he looked around, saw the flowers and structures he had helped assemble all still intact around him. “Hannibal?” he called, voice cracking, but no one answered. He was the only person here, but he was not alone.

A black figure topped with antlers walked towards him, crouching down to where he was crumpled on the floor. It reached a sharp claw out to what used to be his foot, prodding at it, retreating when he screamed. It looked down at him, pity in its eyes to match the tears in Will’s. “He’s not here,” he sobbed, great heaving breaths wracking his body. “I couldn’t save him.”

The creature made a tutting noise, and pressed an open palm to the floor just beside Will’s head. A stark white bled down from its fingers, rushing along the floor and walls, absorbing the plants and tables as it ran. Soon, Will found himself in a pure white room, and when the creature pulled its hand away, a circular drain was in its place. “Why?” Will whispered. In response, the creature only pressed its hand across his eyes, and with the darkness, the pain faded away.

Will jerked upright, still at the table he had sat down at. He blinked the vision away, focusing on the grass and trees around him, the general chatter of the festival, trying to bring himself fully back to reality. There was a bathroom nearby, and he scurried away towards it, splashing water on his face until he no longer felt the urge to topple.

Upon exiting the bathroom he nearly ran into someone, and an unfamiliar voice called out to him. “Are you Will Graham?”

He spun around and came face to face with a younger woman, no older than 23. Confused, he glanced around, trying to figure out if there was miraculously another Will Graham attending the event alongside him and finding nothing. “Do I know you?” 

“Oh my god, it is you! Can I take a picture?”

“A- no?” The situation was rapidly becoming uncomfortable. Will would not have handled this well even if he had not already felt unstable, and this persistent girl was pushing him dangerously close to off balance.

“Come on, no one will believe me if I don’t get a picture! Just one!” She was already pulling out her phone, and Will was calculating just how much trouble he would get into if he slapped it out of her hand.

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” he said, strained. There was grass underneath them, the phone would probably be alright.

“It’s fine, you just have to stand there! You have to tell me, we’ve all gone crazy wondering… did that hand belong to a guy or a girl?”

Will’s entire body went still, and he shifted his posture, fully intending to rip the phone out of the girl’s hand and throw it across the courtyard when an arm looped around his. “Honey, there you are,” a smoky voice interjected, and he turned to find the redhead with the begonias attached to him. “They’ve started judging and I’m just  _ so  _ nervous. Can we please sit down somewhere?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Will answered, still unsure what was happening but jumping at the chance to escape. He let himself be led away, ignoring the sputtering of the young woman behind them.

They really did sit down, at a free table in the shade. “You looked like you needed a rescue,” she explained, and Will sighed.

“I can’t thank you enough.”

“Margot,” the woman introduced, holding out her hand, and Will shook it and introduced himself. “Are you a model?”

Will couldn’t contain the loud bark of laughter that escaped him. “I’m sorry, that was a reasonable assumption, but just-”

“Not the type, I assume.” She smiled at him, half of her mouth ticking up in a grin. “I do feel like I’ve seen you before today though, and can’t place it.”

Reality crashed back down. “You use Instagram?”

“Oh, that’s it!” Recognition filled her eyes. “You’re trending, I’m afraid.”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, pulling out his phone. “Sorry, give me a second.” He texted Beverly.

_ I’m handling it, _ came the immediate reply.  _ Jack definitely doesn’t use social media but I’m in the process of bribing Zeller and Price right now. It’s gonna get back to Jack eventually, though. _ A pause, then another message.  _ Sorry you found out before I could tell you. I figured you’d appreciate the damage control more. _ She was correct. Will put his phone away. 

“Doxxed?” Margot guessed, and Will nodded. “Unfortunate thing at times, the internet.”

Will sighed. “Can’t do much about it now.”

Margot looked at him thoughtfully. “Are you staying to see the results?”

“Yeah, I’m waiting for- yeah.” Will caught himself, not entirely sure why he was concealing the fact that he was here with Hannibal. It felt strange, like a secret he shouldn’t share yet.

Margot, it seemed, was too sharp to let it slide. “For the hand?” She said playfully, and when Will scowled at her she only laughed. “Then it seems we both have some time to kill. Did you have any plans?”

Exploring the festival with Margot was a very different experience than exploring it with Hannibal, and before he knew it they were sitting in the audience, watching the results be announced. All but the grand prize had been determined and Margot’s begonias had not been mentioned. He glanced over at the woman beside him, who seemed nothing but poised. “Aren’t you nervous?” he whispered.

“I did not expect to win,” she whispered back, “so I will not be terribly upset when I get nothing.”

“And now, the judge’s special awards!” the host called out, and they went down the line until only Alana and Hannibal’s choices were left. 

“For my pick, these flowers were immaculately cared for and a color I have never quite seen before. Extraordinarily impressive, and I must insist you tell me how you pulled it off.” Alana smiled out into the crowd, and Will caught the exact moment her eyes locked with the woman sitting beside him. “Entrant 37, Margot Verger!”

Will made sure to cheer as Margot went on stage to collect her prize. When she sat next to him once more, she looked somewhat shaken. He saw a sequence of numbers scrawled on the back of her certificate, and did not mention it.

“Finally, it is time for my choice,” Hannibal began, and the crowd fell silent. Any award was impressive, but to be hand-picked by Hannibal himself was surely considered to be a great honor. “It is a very unusual entrant, a flower not commonly grown. The flowers themselves are stunning, and one may be afraid that they will bite if you roam too close. Entrant 29, Randall Tier!”

People were applauding, but all Will could focus on was those strange bat faced flowers he had told Hannibal were his favorite, and the name he had just heard written on the card in front of them.

The dinner they had eaten that night had been normal, even pleasant. Will wanted to ask about Hannibal’s choice, wanted to ask if it was just a coincidence that he had chosen the same flowers as Will, but could not find a way to justify bringing it up. If this had been a prize in name only the theoretical gesture would not have mattered but the judge’s picks had substantial rewards attached to them as well, and it wasn’t something to be taken lightly. Will wanted to look up his previous choices, see if he was prone to picking strange flowers or even the opposite, but he knew this was just his brain reading far too much into things, looking for red flags, and so he forced himself to drop the matter.

His garden would be mostly ready to harvest within the week, and some quicker growers like the heirloom tomatoes were already ready to go. Nothing in the packets had been ready early on and there were a few late-season plants mixed in like his squash and onions, but the rest was blooming in a wonderful array of colors. It seemed like he had landed a ton of peppers this year, all colors of bell peppers sprinkled throughout the garden with longer, spicy peppers popping up every now and then. He was trying to decide what the hell to do with them all when his phone rang. 

“A body dropped in California,” Jack told him, and Will tensed up.

“The same killer? That’s a hell of a drive to make.”

“We think so. We’ll need you here for a couple of days, to help with the forensics work too. Got someone who can watch your things?”

Will was about to say no, when another part of the dinner conversation came back to him.

_ Who tends to your garden when you are away?  _ Hannibal had asked. It hadn’t been entirely out of nowhere, fitting in with the flow of the conversation, but it was a strange question nonetheless.  _ I have been looking for someone to take care of my personal garden when both me and Chiyoh are away.  _ A justification and nothing more.

_ I’m never away.  _ It was the truth, though more of an avoidance of the actual problem.  _ The one time I was gone for awhile I just convinced them to let me take Winston with me and let the garden fend for itself. _

_ That simply will not do,  _ Hannibal had replied, and promptly offered his assistance. Will refused so many times they stopped sounding like words, and Hannibal had eventually worn him down and promised to help if ever needed.

The dinner was weeks ago, but it was still an incredible coincidence. He hadn’t seen Hannibal in a week, plenty of time to fly to the west coast and-

_ No, _ Will told himself. The chances of someone being both the most notorious serial killer in recent history, local, and genuinely interested in Will were astronomically low. Hannibal was simply laying it on very thick, and the two events happened to line up. “Yeah,” Will answered, and they hashed out the details of the flight. He’d have to leave soon, but he had enough time to pack and contact Hannibal.

He picked up on the third ring. “Hello, Will,” he greeted.

“Hey,” he rushed out. “This is really short notice and I’m sorry, but-” The words stuck in his throat.

“Slow down, Will.” Hannibal’s tone was gentle, soothing. “Am I correct in assuming you are going to need someone to look after your house for a time?”

“Yeah,” Will exhaled. He was thankful for Hannibal’s strange ability to always know what he was going to say.  _ He knows too well,  _ a voice in the back of his head told him, and he smothered it. “Jack said it’d be two days, but it could easily stretch into more. I can call a service if it’s too much.”

“Nonsense,” came the immediate reply. 

“Thank you,” Will said, relieved. “I’ll leave the spare key under the front door mat for you.”

“That is not safe, Will,” Hannibal chastised, and Will laughed.

“I’m not lying when I’ve said I live in the middle of nowhere. Uh, I’ve done everything for today, and Winston has a doggy door so you don’t need to come until tomorrow. I can text you the address later, if that’s okay. Oh!” A sudden thought struck Will, and he continued talking. “A bunch of the things in my garden will be ready to eat soon-”

“Would you like me to harvest them for you?” Hannibal offered.

“No, nothing like that,” Will answered hastily. “But feel free to take anything you’d like.” He glanced up, at the sea of red, yellow, and greens, and grimaced. “Especially the peppers.”

“I think I will take you up on that offer.” On the other side of the phone, Hannibal sounded positively delighted, and Will smiled. “I wish you the best of luck on your case.”

Will scribbled a note for Hannibal before he left for the airport, mostly short instructions on how to care for Winston. He doubted the other man would need guidance on the garden itself. At the airport, he barely made his flight, and then four hours later he was landing in California. 

He got a text from Hannibal during the taxi ride to the scene.  _ I have been thinking. I am hosting a dinner party soon, and would it be too forward to ask if I could use your vegetables in the meals I prepare? _

Will laughed at the idea of Hannibal being afraid of being too forward. _Go ahead, _he texted back. _There’s plenty of stuff in the garden, and I definitely can’t use all of it myself. Just leave some for me._ _I hope your guests like peppers. _

_ I would love for you to come if you return in time. You may bring a guest with you if you would like. _

That was too much for Will to process at the moment, but luckily the taxi was pulling to a stop at the scene and so he simply turned his phone off and stepped out of the vehicle. 

Beverly had rented a car, and he put his luggage there until they went back to the hotel. “He invited me to a dinner party,” he tells her, because he knows he’ll be alone with the body in moments and she won’t have a chance to respond. True to form, her expression morphs from shock to anger as Jack shoos them all away, leaving Will standing with yet another corpse kneeling in a clearing. The body reaches up, as if to catch something, the eyes are closed, and a pattern is cut into the back. He steps closer and closes his eyes.

Instantly, he opens them, because he already knows what this is. “Beverly!” he calls, and the woman in question is beside him momentarily. She looked a bit put-out still, but remained as professional as she ever is. 

“Not gonna do your thing?” she asks, eyebrow raised.

“I don’t think I need to,” Will answers, crouching behind the back and motioning for her to do the same. “Tell me about the victim while you help me with this.” He dug his fingers at the bottom of the design, finding that it gave way like he expected it to. Carefully, slowly, he began peeling the flesh upwards and away from the body, while Beverly did the same to the other side of the back. 

“He’s connected to previous victims,” she began, glancing over to how Will was working and copying his motions. “An ex-boyfriend of Mary, in fact.”

The woman kneeling before the cross. “He’s probably got her eyes.” The flesh was not smooth on the underside, and Will had to make sure that the pieces cut away from the rest did not tear or deform as he pulled them away from the bone.

“There was a huge scandal where he raised a lot of money for a charity and supposedly kept the funds for himself.” The ribs were starting to show now, the tissue and muscle they were separating having been cut free all the way to the bone. Only the rib cage kept the organs safely inside the corpse. “Never got proven either way, but his career was finished after that.”

“She was dating him at the time?” Will asked, nearly done with his chunk of flesh. 

“They split up because of that,” Beverly confirmed, and then they both held the loose sheets of skin and meat in their hands. Will pulled his upwards, stretching it out away from the body, out past the shoulders, and she did the same.

The back of the corpse was fully exposed now, the muted sheen of dead organs piled behind the stark white bones. Above them, the separated flesh spread out like wings, with a great many feathers carved away from skin and fluttering in the breeze. “Holy shit,” Beverly whispered, and Will called out to Jack.

“It’s a Native American legend,” Will explained, remaining where he was to let others examine the wings. “There are variations, but the gist of it is that a bird tricks coyote into losing his eyes, sometimes ending up stealing them. We’re looking at the bird here. Presumably our killer thought it was only fair that coyote enacted his revenge.”

Jack crouched between them, studying the wings. “Carving this intricately and then having it all lay flat like nothing had happened would require a great deal of skill. Why go to all that trouble for something that could be easily overlooked until the autopsy?”

“Because he knew we’d find it,” Will answered, and he knew deep in his core that the words were truth.

“These eyes don’t match,” came Price’s voice from the front of the body. “They’ve been preserved well, but they’re just sitting in the sockets and look like they’ve been dead longer.”

Jack stood and moved to the front. “I have a sneaking suspicion these are our missing eyes from the virgin Mary kill.” Beverly shot Will a look, and he just shrugged. “We’ll have to wait for testing to be sure. Katz, Graham, go do your thing. I’ll call everyone back when we have more information.”

“Want us to…?” Beverly brought the wing down a bit, asking if they were to fold the wings back down onto the body.

Jack motioned over two techs and had them take the wings, keeping them outstretched. “I’ll let Zeller take photos first. You two can head back to the hotel for now.”

Beverly drove them back to their hotel, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “How did you get all that just from looking at the body?” she finally asked, unable to keep the question buried any longer. “You went right for the wings like you knew they would be there.”

“I’m familiar with the legend,” was all Will gave her, and he knew it was not even close to the whole story.  _ It felt like him,  _ he wouldn’t say,  _ and I know he would not leave something so basic behind. Not when he made us travel this far. _

“Well,” she began, knowing full well when she wouldn’t be able to squeeze any more information out of Will. “Jack sent us back to do research but I don’t really think we need to do anything, so that means…”

“You have plenty of time to grill me,” Will groaned, dropping his head against the window with a  _ thunk. _

She was kind enough to let them check into the hotel and put their luggage away before jumping on the subject. “So, a dinner party, huh?”

“I was sort of hoping you’d forget,” Will grumbled, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “Why does Jack always put us together? Do you think he’d let me swap?”

“Cheaper,” Beverly answered, settling herself in one of the armchairs, “and he knows we won’t hook up.”

“Doesn’t stop him from putting Price and Zeller together.”

Beverly gaped at him. “I  _ know _ that’s bait but we’re gonna revisit that later, alright? Spill.”

“There’s nothing to spill,” Will protested weakly. “He invited me to a party he's hosting. There will be tons of other people there. The end.”

“Hmm,” Beverly hummed. “Well, you told me, so clearly you wanted my support, and I want you to know that you have it in full. I’ll always be your friend, even if you get drunk and climb him like a tree in front of high society.”

“I asked you,” Will interjected, face heating, “because he told me I could bring someone and there’s no way I’m going to this thing alone.”

“Oh!” Beverly was delighted, as Will knew she would be. “Definitely, when is it? If a body turns up I’ll just tell Jack we’re both sick, he’ll buy it.”

“He just said it was soon.” Will ignored the poorly thought-out plan she had tacked on the end, knowing full well they’d be there no matter what if another body dropped. “Soon enough we might not make it if this takes too long.”

“Well I don’t wanna say it seems open-and-shut, because it never is, but we can’t get much more from this since you already figured everything out, mister genius. What are you gonna wear?”

“My shame,” Will answered, head in his hands, and Beverly laughed.

“I’ll help you pick out something sexy,” she offered, and Will threw a pillow at her. 

Much to his disappointment, she caught it easily. “Just let me know when he tells you more.”

“Yeah,” Will answered, already regretting his decision to invite Beverly along. 

She tossed the pillow back to him. “Now, tell me about Brian and Jimmy.”

“You seriously haven’t noticed?” Will frowned, and they lost the rest of the day discussing the minutiae of that particular relationship. 

The next day, when they all gathered to examine the evidence, Jack asked Will if he thought the new killer had an ocular fixation. “No,” he had answered, because he didn’t. “In the case of the first relevant kill, she had turned a blind eye to her partner’s wrongdoings, so he removed what she wasn’t using. It’s not a stretch to say she learned to look the other way while in the relationship with this one, so in a roundabout way you could argue that he stole her eyes.”

“So it’s the same killer?” Jack asked, because he had to.

“Undoubtedly,” Will answered.

“Then why come all the way out here for this one?” Zeller chimed in. “I get the victim lives here, but it’s not like the killer has started making sets before this.”

It was a question Will had dwelled on for a long time, and never quite gotten an answer for. “Things… changed, starting with Mary. I’m not sure why, but she’s important, or at least important  _ because  _ things changed starting with her.”

“Could be a distraction,” Beverly added. “Draw us all far away from his home turf while he sets up something special for us there.”

“The thought has crossed my mind,” Jack added tightly. “That’s why I want us done here as soon as possible. Hopefully we’ll be heading back the day after tomorrow.”

The rest of the day was long, both Will and Beverly assisting with the general investigation in the hopes of speeding it along. By the time they had finished and night was falling, Will was exhausted, nearly letting the bag of food Beverly launched at him go sailing past his head and into the wall. He was at least thankful she hadn’t thrown the drink. “You hear anything more about that party?” she asked, burger in one hand and drink in the other.

Will dropped his still wrapped burger onto the bed and swore. He pulled his phone out and unlocked it hurriedly, ignoring Beverly laughing at him from across the room.  _ I’m sorry, _ he opened with.  _ Things got crazy and I got wrapped up in the investigation. When’s the dinner party? We should be back pretty soon, hopefully. _ When he looked back up, Beverly was grinning at him.

“You forgot to even reply, didn’t you?” Will did not answer, but he knew his grimace gave him away. “Smooth.”

His phone chirped, saving him from having to defend himself.  _ Do not worry,  _ Hannibal had replied.  _ I knew you would be busy. The dinner will be Sunday night. Will you be bringing a friend? _

It was Wednesday, so if they left on schedule Will would have a full day to have whatever panic attack he needed to get out of his system before the day of the event. “It’s Sunday night,” he told Beverly, who was scooching closer every second. “I think we’ll make it.”

“Ask if there’s a dress code,” she suggested.

_ I think we’ll be back in time. Is this a black tie event?  _ He had meant it as a joke, but only after sending the message did he realize it very well could be.  _ I’ll bring Beverly, if that’s all right. _

_ I would not turn you away if you were dressed in rags, but you may feel uncomfortably out of place if you are not dressed nicely.  _ Will turned away from Beverly, who was dangerously close to being able to read the text on his phone, and continued reading the message.  _ I look forward to finally meeting Ms. Katz. _

“It’s fancy,” Will sighed, attempting to shoulder Beverly away from him. “Probably painfully so.”  _ I think I’ll only need you to take care of things through Friday. We should be flying back sometime that day. Again, I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me.  _

“Oh, I haven’t dressed up in a while! The maybe-Ripper better not kill anyone else off right when we get back, I swear to god.”

_ I am more than happy to be of help, Will. Your garden is quite lovely, and I find myself enjoying the time I spend in it, although I now understand why you have been pushing the peppers so hard.  _ Internally, Will saw Hannibal entering his garden, looking around, and doing a double-take at the almost comically huge amount of peppers within. He nearly laughed. “Do you still think this might be the Ripper?”

She shot him a look. “Don’t you?”

Will sighed. “We should tell Jack.”

Beverly chewed, thinking, before finally speaking. “After the party.”

“After the party,” Will agreed. Let him have one last enjoyable moment before everything well and truly went to shit. 


	4. We Are Intertwined

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will goes to a dinner party, and makes a big decision.

No more problems or bodies arose, and Friday afternoon found them all on a plane back to Virginia. When he arrived home, Winston was practically doing kickflips from excitement, and he spent some time playing with the dog before even entering his home. Inside, there was no trace of Hannibal, and Will ignored the little lurch his heart made at the realization. What had he even expected? It wasn’t like the had asked the other man to stay at his house, and Hannibal was such a neat person that he would have cleaned up any sign of his presence regardless. There was, however, a folded piece of paper sitting on his kitchen table, the spare key placed on top. 

He had thought, many times over the course of his trip, of telling Hannibal to keep the spare, just in case. He brushed it off the paper and unfolded the note.  _ I hope I have not taken too much,  _ it began.  _ There will be many pepper dishes at the party, I assure you. Please let me know if you like what I have left you.  _ Underneath, his name was signed in an elegant script.

Will frowned, looking around the room. What Hannibal had left him? It could only be one thing- he opened his fridge and saw wrapped plates of food he could never hope to make. Atop each one sat an index card, and when he pulled out the closest to inspect it they revealed themselves to be instructions on reheating their contents. He shut the fridge door and went to check on his garden. 

It looked the same, minus a lot of vegetables. Hannibal had taken care to leave him a substantial amount for his personal usage, and he was relieved to see his pepper burden had been lifted from his shoulders. That night, he heated the stuffed bell peppers Hannibal had left him and ate in silence. Before he went to bed, he texted Hannibal, thanking him for his help, and told him how delicious they had been.

Saturday passed with Will barely leaving his house, content to simply laze around and eat the delicious food he had been given, and then it was Sunday.

Will had not slept much, but the anxious energy that filled him did not leave any room for fatigue. He ate a late breakfast, showered, neatened his hair and beard, and then his life descended into a tornado of clothes and worry. 

Far away, someone knocked on his door. Beverly was giving him a ride, partly to ensure he actually went, and partly because they both knew of his habit of nervous drinking, but it was still too early to be her. Nonetheless, she was on his porch when he opened the door, clad in a stunning black gown, her hair even silkier than usual. “Yo,” she greeted, with a wave.

“You’re an hour early,” Will said dumbly.

“Because I knew you’d be exactly this ready to leave if I had shown up on time.” She rolled her eyes. “Let me in, I’ll see what you’ve done.”

They trekked upstairs, into the room Will should have used as a guest bedroom but instead mostly used for storage. Currently, it was filled with various shirts and jackets hung on every available surface. He hadn’t even gotten to the pants yet. “I know you don’t have any suits, but I know you have a blazer, because I bought it for you. Where is it?”

Will looked down. Truthfully, he didn’t like wearing it, because it drew attention to him. “In the closet still,” he sighed, and Beverly produced it in record time. 

It was a navy plaid, mostly uniform in color but with a visible pattern on it. “Everyone else is going to be just as dressed up,” she pointed out, shoving the jacket towards the man. “You’ve got dark pants in here somewhere, right?”

He nodded, letting her take the reins, and went and found them. They were a dark charcoal, a similar shade as the blazer, but in a different color. She soon selected a lighter grey shirt to go under, and they spent a good thirty minutes arguing over a tie until Beverly nearly wrung his neck with one and forced him to put the whole outfit on before making a decision. In the end, he walked out the door with a deep red and blue plaid tie around his neck, colors so dark it wasn’t initially apparent they were so contrasting. “I forgot aftershave,” he muttered, and Beverly nearly smacked him.

“I’m not turning around. You bathed, right? You don’t stink?”

“Not yet,” Will conceded, and this time she really did smack him gently on the shoulder. 

“Stop freaking out,” she chided. “There’s nothing to be worried about. It’s just a party. I’ll be there too.”

“You and all of Baltimore high society,” Will grumbled, and Beverly forcibly changed the subject.

“Is he gonna kiss my hand or anything when I meet him?”

“I-” Will reconsidered his answer. “Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Hannibal did, as it turned out, kiss Beverly’s hand when they met. “It is nice to meet you properly,” he greeted. “And Will, I am glad you came. You look wonderful.”

“Uh.” Will’s brain stuttered to a halt, and he brought a hand up to run through his hair, immediately undoing all the effort he had spent trying to get it to sit nicely. “Thank you. Everything looks fantastic.”

While the interior of the building was filled with more guests, the exterior had been decorated as well, with long strings of lights connecting the various trellises and gates making up the courtyard. His gardens, in particular, were in top form, everything having been freshly pruned. Hannibal accepted the compliment graciously. “Regrettably, I must play the good host and go mingle. Dinner shall be served in thirty minutes, and I must insist that you try the pepper dishes, as they are simply delightful.” He left, then, leaving only a wink in his wake. 

“Do you guys have some sort of inside joke about peppers?” Beverly asked, after giving Will some time to recover from the interaction.

“A- no, I let him take a bunch of vegetables from my garden. Mostly peppers.” A waiter passed by with a tray full of wine glasses, and Will grabbed two.

“Wait.” Beverly plucked the second glass out of Will’s hands before he had a chance to pour its contents into the first and hide the empty glass shamefully among the dirt. “Was  _ Hannibal  _ the one watching your shit while were were gone?”

Will hushed Beverly, glancing around. While most of the guests were inside, there were still a decent amount milling around the gardens, and even more arriving still. “He offered!”

“Do you usually tell all your friends when you’re flying out of state for work?”

“No, I mean earlier, it just came up in conversation and- let’s just go inside.”

Beverly smirked, triumphant, and they entered the noisy building. It overwhelmed him nearly immediately but he did not want to hide outside, so Beverly found them a nice corner in the sitting room, next to the harpsichord, and asked him questions about the building until he felt well enough to answer in more than a sentence. “Play something,” Beverly joked, pointing towards the harpsichord beside them. 

“You know I can’t,” Will answered. He had forced himself to only sip at the wine he held, but the frequency in which he had been taking said sips meant the glass was nearly empty already.

“Don’t you have a piano?”

“It came with the house,” Will snorted. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who actually knows how to play an instrument.”

“The violin doesn’t translate well to the piano,” Beverly laughed, and before the conversation could continue there was an announcement that dinner had been served. 

Will wanted to wait, let the crowds pick through and clear, but Beverly didn’t want anything to be gone and dragged them both into the dining room. The beautiful wooden dining table had been pushed back against the herb wall, not quite touching it but close enough that it was clear you should not go between the two, and additional tables were set up to contain all the food. The spread was incredible, whole roasted hams and birds sitting among incredible-looking dishes Will couldn’t have named if you had held a gun to his head. Unsurprisingly, it smelled amazing.

Beverly somehow managed to pile her plate high with a great variety of food without making it look as if she had done so, while Will avoided the familiar dishes and sampled everything he did not recognize. He knew Hannibal enjoyed creating complex and unusual dishes, and while everything was sure to taste incredible, this was where his talents truly shone through. Will snagged another glass of wine and they returned to the sitting room to eat. 

Everyone around them was remarking on the quality of the food, and Beverly in particular was not bothering to hide her enjoyment. Will did not often drink wine, but the red was smooth, almost fruity, and went superbly with the dishes he was eating. Almost all of them contained some variety of pepper, and Will wondered how much of it was his.

“I might have to go back for seconds,” Beverly said, plate polished clean, but then her phone rang. “I’ll be right back,” she told Will, and made a beeline for the door.

She returned in a rush, a somewhat panicked look on her face. “I have to go,” she said quickly, and panic shot through Will in turn.

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s nothing disastrous, family thing, but I have to go. I’m really sorry, Will.”

He had barely spoken to Hannibal, barely had a chance to roam the house, barely spent any time here at all. He was surprised to find he did not want to leave.

Beverly, it seemed, picked up on it. “You can stay, I’ll pay you back for a cab home. The night is young.”

“You don’t have to,” Will protested, but he knew he’d fold eventually. “Go. Let me know when everything’s alright.”

With another apology, she rushed back out, and Will was alone. 

It took less than ten minutes for Will to start regretting his decision to stay. With no one left to focus on, he felt adrift, lost in a sea of emotions and sound. Very briefly, he considered finding the few people he and Beverly had made small talk with, but the thought of having to make further stilted conversation with fellow strangers sent such a sharp spark of anxiety through him that when the urge to escape outside hit once more, he did not ignore it. He drained his glass, set the empty vessel on a tray for dirty dishes, and went outside as quickly as he could manage without arousing suspicion.

Outside, it was cool, the sun having set and leaving the courtyard lit only by the warm strings of lights. Will inhaled deeply, letting the cool air rush into his lungs and shock him out of his reverie. Once free, he blinked, and looked around him. The area was relatively empty, mostly couples admiring the flowers and speaking in hushed tones.

Most of the ocean had been harvested, with small chunks of blue popping up among the dirt at what felt like random. He itched with the desire to walk among them once more. Instead, he found the closest free block of flowers, and went to it.

The garden outside was not continuous, split up into smaller squares that were safely gated away. It seemed like the roses drew the most attention, something Will had entirely expected, but what he found before him was a strange mixture of plants. Low to the ground were green leaves fanned out like maple holding curling white flowers, woven within flowers that looked almost like daisies, with huge yellow centers and spiny, needle-like leaves. Sprouting from the dead center, towering above the rest, was a single, magnificent sunflower.

“It’s impressive that, year after year, it’s always just a single sunflower.” A soft, pleasant voice rang out through the darkness, and Will would have startled if he had not recognized it. He turned and saw Alana, wearing an elegant red gown, lipstick matching perfectly. “Hi, Will,” she said, turning to face him fully.

“Hey,” he replied, instantly calmed by her presence. He had not seen her as a therapist for a long time, and even the most recent visit had been over a year ago, but she still made him feel safe whenever she was nearby. She had never judged him, which was a pretty basic requirement for her profession, but she had also never pried, tried to dig out the secrets deep within his brain like anyone else in the field he had met in a professional capacity. A waiter walked by, offered them more wine, and Will took a glass.

She looked at him, the way the glass shook in his heads, and took it from him. “Are you anxious?” she asked, not unkindly. Not prying, simply inquiring.

“This isn’t really my crowd,” he admitted, not making any moves to take the wine back. They had spoken in great length about his nervous drinking habit in their sessions, and while they were successful in curbing it, it had never truly gone away. “I came with someone, but they had to leave early.”

“That’s bold, for you.” A different waiter came back around, and she handed off the wine. “I’m sure Hannibal will have sufficiently mingled pretty soon, and come looking for you.”

“Why would you bring up Hannibal?” Will shot back, instinctively defensive. Alana shot him a look that said she wasn’t buying it.

“I may know you better, but I’ve known him longer. He tells me things.”

Will desperately wanted to ask her to elaborate, for once with someone he didn’t mind asking, but the subject of their conversation chose this exact moment to materialize beside them. Will very nearly jumped out of his skin, biting his tongue to keep himself from asking how on earth someone like Hannibal managed to move so silently. “I thought I might find you outside,” he greeted, “though with a different woman.”

“Oh, uh, Beverly had to leave,” Will replied, trying to calm his beating heart.

“Oh, my. Will everything be okay?” Concern graced Hannibal’s features, and as his heart slowed, Will wondered if everyone else would believe it was sincere. 

“She’ll be fine,” Will answered, suddenly feeling the cold more acutely. “I’ll just take a cab back later.”

Hannibal peered at Will, studying him, considering something only he could see. Alana chose this moment of silence to make her exit. “I should get back to Margot,” she mentioned, and Will smiled involuntarily. “It was nice seeing you again, Will. Hannibal.” With that, she departed.

“You were sitting with Margot at the festival, if memory serves.” Hannibal started back towards the house, and Will followed at his side. “Did you know her beforehand, or did you meet here there?”

“Met her,” Will answered. “She helped me with- something. Did Alana really write her phone number on the back of that certificate?”

“I encouraged her to,” Hannibal confirmed. “They seemed to be quite compatible, as tonight is evidence of. Perhaps I will start a vegetable festival and make a similar gesture of my own.”

Will was very,  _ very  _ glad there was at least some measure of alcohol in his system. Not drunk, by any stretch, but somewhat buzzed, looser, more confident. It was only this that allowed Will to shoot back just as hard instead of becoming a stuttering mess. “I already have your phone number,” he countered, eyebrow cocking. 

“A frustrating obstacle indeed.” They reached the front door, and Hannibal held it open. “After you.”

It felt quieter, inside the house, everything fading into the background with someone to focus on. Hannibal took him through the house, finally giving him a proper tour of the lower level. The decor could most accurately be described as ‘eclectic’, housing everything from large classical paintings to a huge set of antlers branching out from the wall. After, Will found himself in what seemed to be an inner parlor, sitting across from Hannibal in a comfortable armchair, a fireplace lighting the room around them. 

“I’m just saying,” Will continued, “most people  _ don’t  _ have a full suit of samurai armor in their studies.”

“It is a family heirloom,” Hannibal sniffed, and oddly enough, Will somehow believed him. “Authentic, and worth a small fortune.”

“That’s an even bigger reason not to have it sitting around your house where people can get to it.” It had been in a glass case, and Will was confident there was a more thorough alarm system he could not see, but he still could not wrap his head around leaving such a valuable object just out in the open like that.

“I would rather display it for all to see than hide it away. Besides, I need it somewhere accessible, for when I decide to dress myself in it and galavant around the house, swinging the katana above my head.”

Will snorted. “You know, I almost believed that.” Above the fireplace, a clock hung, and it chimed twelve times, interrupting them. Will set his glass down on the table next to him, eyes widening. “I had no idea it had gotten this late. Did everybody else leave?”

“Chiyoh saw them out,” Hannbal answered, “and the caterers have left as well.”

Somewhat frantically, Will patted his pockets, searching for his phone. “I need to call a cab.”

“Or,” Hannibal began, and Will’s heart picked up it’s pace. “It is past midnight, and I have many guest rooms available. You may spend the night, if you wish.”

He thought of waiting for a cab, riding home alone in the dark, probably not getting back until 2 in the morning at the earliest. Thought of staying here, instead, and what it may mean. “If it’s not too much trouble,” he finally answered, and Hannibal smiled. 

“Not at all.” Hannibal placed his glass down as well, and stood. “Come, let me show you to your room.”

As he followed the other man up the stairs, Will wondered if his heartbeat sounded as loud to Hannibal as it did to him.

In the end, he was only walked to the room and shown inside. There was an ensuite bathroom and spare pajamas in the dresser, both of which he was allowed full use of, and Hannibal retired to his own room for the night. It took a long while for Will to fall asleep, mind still racing a mile a minute, but eventually he succumbed. 

It was freezing. His bare feet stuck to the ice as he walked, always coming free in the end, but slowing his progress considerably. The ice pulsed beneath him, and if he timed his steps correctly, his feet would pop free nearly instantly. He had no idea where he was going, only that he would know it when he saw it.

Eventually, he saw two long, dark shapes lying on the ice, and hurried towards them. An ice spud and saw, he noted, as they became clearer the nearer he got. The strange ice was opaque, and he could not see what was beneath it, but if these were the tools he had been given, it could only be water. He had done this many times before, and knew exactly what was being asked of him.

He took the spud first, and drove it forcefully down into the ice. It bucked beneath him, not fracturing but recoiling, and an awful groaning sound filled the air. He did not stop, even when the shards of ice that flew into the air took on another color, no longer white, but red. The spud punched through the bottom layer of ice and he nearly lost his grip on it, but when he made to pull it back to the surface it would not budge. He released his grip on it just before it shot down into the water, far too fast to have simply fallen. A large spurt of water shot out of the wound, painting the surrounding ice red, before the groaning faded away.

The saw was next. As he started opening a large hole, the groaning began again, sharpening into closer to a scream. Normally, in reality, he would have cut away smaller chunks and pushed them under the ice as he worked, but he simply cut in a large circle, far larger than anything he would have created if fishing had been his aim. He had held these fish in his hands before, and knew they were not what he was searching for. The screaming pitched up as he neared the completion of the circle, red water splashing up almost defensively, until he finally met the beginning of the shape and all of a sudden all sound cut. He knelt, carefully touching the now disconnected piece of ice, and he pushed harder, trying to get it to change. It went from freezing hardness to a warm, plush feeling, and all at once it dissolved into hundreds of thrashing fish, who soon escaped into the waters below.

Will was left staring at a gaping red hole, easily two feet across, and he was wondering what exactly he was meant to do when a black, clawed hand shot out of the water and seized him by the neck, hauling him into the depths. On instinct, Will gasped, which only allowed the red fluid to rush into his lungs, choking him. He could see nothing, and the water burned, so he closed his eyes. Something wrapped around him, drawing him against a hard chest, and when he threw his hands up to grasp for escape, they only curled around antlers.

Will crashed awake, choking back a scream. He was soaked, he dimly realized, as he forced himself to take slower breaths to steady himself. The sheets beneath him had not fared much better, and Will grimaced. It was horrifically embarrassing. He had not had a nightmare like this in a long time, and had not even considered it a possibility.

He stumbled into the bathroom, peeling the sweat-soaked shirt away from his body and dropping it to the floor. Could he sneak around Hannibal’s house and find the laundry room? Would Hannibal catch him trying to launder the sheets in secret like a young child who had wet the bed? The idea made him nauseous, and he turned the tap on and splashed cold water on his face.

No matter what, he should strip the bed sheets so as not to stain the mattress, and was doing so when there was a soft knock on the door. Will froze.

“Are you alright, Will?” came Hannibal’s voice, and Will wanted so desperately to drown in that blood ocean forever.

“I-” He began speaking, but his voice was thick with sleep, and he had to clear his throat. “Yeah. Just a nightmare. Did I wake you?”

“I have trouble sleeping myself, so I was already awake.” A pause. “I was going to make some tea. Would you like some?”

“Sure,” Will replied, because avoiding the problem entirely may do him so good. He glanced down at himself, still damp with sweat, and grimaced once more. “I’ll meet you down there.”

Once he had washed himself off to some degree Will made his way downstairs, following the floral scent of the tea until he located Hannibal in the dining room. He had not replaced the sodden sleep shirt, wandering downstairs in nothing but the pants and his underwear beneath, not thinking much of the fact until he saw Hannibal’s hands tighten on the handle of the teapot, and was then suddenly more aware of that fact than anything else.

Hannibal, luckily, recovered quickly, and poured them both a cup. He was sitting at the corner of the dining table, a chair pulled out across diagonally, and when Will sat he found they were no more than a foot apart. “Chamomile,” Hannibal explained. “It helps with relaxation. The same plant I found you and Alana at earlier, in fact.”

For a while now, Will had the suspicion that Hannibal made all his own tea, but had never found the chance to ask. He took a sip. “The ones with the large yellow centers?” he guessed.

“The very ones.” Hannibal, now, took a drink of his own, before continuing the conversation. “Tell me, Will. What is it that keeps you up at night?”

Will considered the question. “My nightmares aren’t something you should share with polite company.”

“Are they always so horrific?”

“No,” and Will sighed. “I used to have them pretty regularly, but they’re rare now.”

“Comes with the territory of your career, I suppose.” 

It did not. When he had them, long ago, almost nightly, it was right after New Orleans, and it was only through his sessions with Alana that he found himself free of them. They resurfaced on occasion, after particularly gruesome cases, after Hobbs, sometimes even at random. He only shrugged. 

Seemingly sensing this was an uncomfortable subject, or at least not one he could broach just yet, Hannibal steered the conversation in another direction. “You have left your glasses upstairs,” he observed, and Will’s hand flew up to his face to discover it was true. “Can you see alright?”

“They’re not for vision impairment anyways,” Will admitted. “They’re to give me something to hide behind.”

Hannibal’s eyes sharpened. “Your empathy.” Will nodded. “What exactly is the extent of it?”

It was a question Will had been asked many times before, and while it usually enraged him, he wanted to try to explain it for Hannibal. “I can pick up on emotions. If I’m looking at someone, have a clear view of their face, I can tell how they are feeling, with very few exceptions.”

“Combined with your intelligence, I imagine you are an excellent profiler.” He cocked his head to the side, watching. “But it haunts you. You must see a great many things that no one wishes to see.”

“You get used to it,” Will interjected. 

“Is that not a problem in itself?”

Will looked down, away from the piercing gaze in front of him. “It is.”

“I imagine people ask you to tell them how they are feeling at that moment.”

Now, Will looked back up, because he knew that was Hannibal’s way of asking him to do the very same. “You’re… one of the exceptions, sort of. I can’t always tell what you’re feeling, but I can tell what you’re not, so you don’t have to pretend to feel what most people would, at least around me.”

Hannibal smiled at that, broad and genuine. “It is unusual to be around someone who can see the difference, and even more so someone who does not mind it.”

“How about you?” If they were speaking more intimately, there was something Will had often noticed, and wanted to confirm. “Your sense of smell.”

Once more, Hannibal looked pleased. “It is heightened to the degree that most would not believe it possible. I can tell people apart by nothing more than their scents, and on one occasion I informed a colleague of their cancer before they realized they had it.”

“You can smell  _ illness? _ ” Will would not have believed it himself if he did not also have a similarly impossible affliction. “What does it smell like?”

“It varies.” Hannibal’s eyes were bright, clearly excited that someone was asking the questions he loved answering the most and never got the chance to. “The cancer smelled like rot, but a fever may smell overpoweringly sweet. Nearly as overpowering as that aftershave of yours, in fact.”

“I guess you’re happy I forgot to wear it today,” Will laughed.

“Without it, your natural scent comes through,” Hannibal continued, answering the question Will hadn’t even asked. “You smell earthy, like the forest after rain.” 

Will had a fleeting thought that maybe Hannibal was smelling actual dirt and he should work on his bathing habits, but the look on the other man’s face had him swallowing the joke back down. His eyes, the only place Will found true emotion in the other man’s face, were burning hot. “What do I smell like now?” he asked, acutely aware of what Hannibal would find.

Hannibal leaned in, a hand reaching around to land in the bottom of Will’s curls and tilt his head away to expose his neck. He brought his face closer, so close, almost touching the junction of Will’s neck and shoulders, and inhaled deeply. When he reared back, the look on his face was something so wild and unstable, so disconnected from everything he had come to know about the even-tempered man before him, that it set off alarms Will didn’t even realize he had. He was hiding something, some deep part of his true nature, people simply didn’t reveal emotions that disparate out of nowhere, and the possibilities were dangerous.

Will took one internal look at the alarms and cut the wires.

When he came back to himself, the tea set was on the floor, he was sitting on the table, being consumed. Aware now, he curled a hand through Hannibal’s sandy locks, pulling him away from where he had been buried in his neck. He steered him up, leveled their faces, and Hannibal surged forwards again. It was too eager, teeth knocking together, and Hannibal bit down hard on Will’s lip and drew blood. Will shivered at the sting, felt Hannibal licking the blood away, and tilted his head for something that more closely resembled a kiss.

Hannibal was inside his mouth almost immediately, filled with a possessive desire to both claim and explore. It was overwhelming, almost choking, and before long Will was pulling Hannibal’s head backwards, out of reach. “Calm down,” he breathed, wishing he could follow his own directions. 

“I am afraid I must decline.” Hannibal bit lightly at Will’s jaw as he spoke. “Every second that I am without this feels like an eternity.”

“Okay, then until you can control yourself, if you put your tongue anywhere near my mouth I’ll bite it off. Deal?” He wrapped his legs around Hannibal’s waist, dragging them together, and rolled his body forwards, wanting to drive home the fact that he meant  _ only  _ his mouth and nothing more. He let out an undignified squeak as he felt Hannibal pinch one of his nipples.

“It would be an honor.” The words rang a little bit too true to sit well in any other circumstances, but regardless, Hannibal obeyed, moving lower to his neck instead. The older man licked at his pulse point, grazing his teeth over it, threatening to bite down. 

Will pulled uselessly at the other man’s shirt, trying to unbutton it but unable to steady his shaking hands. Hannibal noticed, pausing just long enough to undo them before returning to Will’s neck. He hoped he would have a necklace of bruises the next day. More urgently, he buried his fingers in the thick nest of hair on the other man’s chest, and when he tugged on it was rewarded with a gasp. 

“Naughty boy,” Hannibal growled, and the words ran up Will’s spine like a shock. A gasp must have escaped him too, because Hannibal straightened somewhat, lined them up perfectly, and ground forward. There was not much between them, only the thin material of sleep pants and underwear beneath, and it nearly felt like nothing at all.

The height, somehow, was ideal, and Hannibal could easily- “Do you-” Will gasped, having difficulty getting the words out.

“Upstairs,” Hannibal answered, the look on his face saying he very much did not want to leave for the minute it would take him to get it. He glanced between Will and the stairs, shifting his legs, clearly testing his weight to see if he could carry him.

Will, however, very much liked where he currently was, and made the choice for them both. “Bring it.” He gave Hannibal a little shove, trying not to focus on how dilated his pupils had become, and the other man was gone in seconds. On the table, Will felt filled with an energy he was not used to, both restless and unwilling to move at all. He saw, on the floor, the shattered remains of the teacups, but the pot was whole among them, metal and not ceramic. Without fully knowing what he was doing, he picked it up and brought it back into the kitchen.

When he made it back to the doorway into the dining room he was lifted off his feet, strong arms under his thighs, and deposited back onto the table. “If you have the presence of mind to clean up the mess we have made then I must not be doing my job right,” Hannibal teased, smiling against the side of Will’s face.

“Maybe I just don’t want the teapot watching,” Will fired back, lifting himself off the table to allow Hannibal to pull the pants off of him. One of those large hands was on his dick, then, squeezing, and Will’s laugh choked off into something else entirely. 

“Have you ever-” Hannibal’s question was cut off when Will deftly slid his feet under the waistband of his pants and pushed them down, letting them drop around the man’s ankles, where he stepped out of them and kicked them away. “You are a man of many talents.” His voice sounded strained. 

“I learned some tricks in college,” Will said, like it explained anything. “And to answer your question, never receiving.”

“Then I will be gentle,” Hannibal murmured, moving his hands backwards to press down on Will’s ass.

Will didn’t want gentle. He wanted to see just how far down this wild beast went. He dropped a hand down, dug his fingers into the meat of Hannibal’s cock, just a hair too tightly. “Don’t be.”

He was nearly slammed down flat onto the table, Hannibal barely catching himself in time to prevent killing the mood with a concussion. A bed would be better, next time, so he could let Hannibal be as aggressive as he wanted within the safe cushions. For now, he loved the feeling of the hard wooden table on his back, the intricately carved masterpiece that had served so many people food just that very evening. His underwear was pulled off and thrown to the side, and then two fingers breached him, slick with lube. 

It felt alien, but not unpleasant, until they tilted upward, onto his prostate, and he cried out. “ _ Fuck, _ ” he hissed, teeth clenched together. It  _ definitely  _ didn’t feel unpleasant now. “Again.”

Hannibal gave him what he wanted, once, but then ignored his pleadings as he massaged with his fingers, letting Will get used to the feeling of being filled. “It wouldn’t be much fun if you came from just my fingers.”

“I would argue-”

At once, the fingers were removed. “Then don’t.” Hannibal leaned down, into Will’s ear, and whispered. “Do you trust me, Will?”

Will shivered, unclear of the precise meaning of the words, but very much wanting to find out. “Yes,” he gasped, and then felt something larger press against him, giving him only a moment to prepare himself before it pushed forwards and inside.

It was far too much, invasive and overwhelming, but still his body accepted it. It burned hot, turned his thoughts to ashes, pulsed inside him like the beating of a heart that was not his own. He tilted his hips up, encouraging Hannibal forward, until he was fully seated inside.

Hannibal looked just as broken open as Will felt. He grabbed one of his legs from where they had sprawled awkwardly on the table and lifted it upwards, leaning forwards until he could hook it over his shoulder, and Will curled the remaining one around his waist. Braced over Will’s body on the table, he pulled backwards, and then slammed back in.

It felt like being trampled, the powerful thrusts rattling the table and threatening to push Will further up the wood. Only his legs kept him in place. He was vaguely aware of the noises he was making, so lost in the sensation, the overwhelming pressure, that he wasn’t sure he was even seeing properly. Every time he felt more grounded, all it took was a look into Hannibal’s eyes and he was lost once more, sinking into the swirling pit of emotion. He had no idea if Hannibal was even hitting his prostate, of if this just felt so very right that it didn’t even matter. “I’m-” Hannibal reared up, eyes seeing all, and Will arched his back and came.

Hannibal did not stop, fucking Will through his orgasm and into oversensitivity. It felt like every nerve on his body was on fire. When the man’s cruel rhythm finally stuttered, Will slid his leg off of his shoulder, bringing it down around his waist with the other, and locked him in place, controlled by an overpowering need to feel everything he possibly could. The cock buried inside him twitched and shuddered, and a new warmth went deeper, painting him in someone else’s colors.

When Hannibal collapsed on top of him he was at least polite enough to do it slowly, though his body still entirely concealed the one beneath him. It was close to suffocating, but still Will hooked his legs around the other man’s waist, unwilling to let him go just yet.

“We need to clean ourselves,” Hannibal said eventually, after time had passed and the high had started to wear off.

Will had, in the interim, wrapped his arms around Hannibal as well. “Later.”

“It will be worse for you if we do not go now,” Hannibal pointed out, amusement in his voice.

“If you can get us there like this, then be my guest,” Will grumbled.

It had been bait, and it had worked beautifully, as Hannibal managed to right himself with Will still wrapped around him. He carried them both upstairs, wobbling dangerously on several of the steps, but got them into the master ensuite safely. Only now did Will stretch out his legs, allowing himself to stand, Hannibal having slid out of him long ago.

They made it into the shower and Hannibal insisted on cleaning them both, slapping Will’s hands away every time he tried to assist. Will found something more productive to do with his hands instead, and in the end, they had to clean themselves a second time as well.

Will woke in a huge, soft bed, alone. For a moment, he worried that he was back in the guest room and everything had been a particularly vivid dream, but then the aches began, and he groaned into the silk sheets. He stretched his limbs in turn, feeling out the source of the pain, deciding to attempt standing and pushing himself upright in the bed. While his waist and ass stung, it was not terribly bad, but when he placed his feet on the carpet and attempted to stand, he found himself collapsed onto his knees. Only then did he realize his back had not truly hit him.

The door opened, and Hannibal’s eyebrows shot into his hairline at the sight of Will kneeling on the floor. He had a tray in his hands, wet towels and similar things, and set it on the dresser as he entered. “I did not think I was quite that enthusiastic,” he smiled, going to help the other man back up onto the bed.

“It’s my back, you asshole,” Will scowled, allowing Hannibal to turn him away to inspect the area. 

“The wood was not kind to you,” he conceded, pressing the tip of a finger into one of Will’s shoulders and retreating when he hissed in pain.

“Neither was the tile,” Will groaned. His spine ached, like he had slept on concrete, and the skin felt raw and open. 

“Take these.” Hannibal offered Will a glass of water and two white pills, presumably painkillers. “You do not appear to have any abrasions but I would like to apply an ointment for safety’s sake.”

“Go ahead,” Will allowed, willing to let the other man do just about anything at that point. The cool washcloth met his back, carefully cleaning the area, and it felt pleasant. Next, the ointment, and he tried to remain still as Hannibal massaged it into his skin, though he could not stop his body from twitching away when he reached the more tender areas.

“It may be wise to consider the table off-limits for future endeavors,” Hannibal suggested, and Will was inclined to agree. 

“Future endeavors, hmm?” Will was thinking aloud, and he only realized that when Hannibal’s hands stilled on his back. He dropped his head down into his chest. “Fuck, sorry, that probably sounded pretty bad. I want there to be. Future endeavors.”

Hannibal resumed his ministrations. “I was worried I would have to re-plan the entire day.”

The laugh that escaped Will helped him propel his head back upwards, and he rolled his neck from side to side in an attempt to crack the stiff joints. “The garden will be fine, but I can’t just ignore Winston, you know.” The touch left him, and he felt the cooling of the ointment all the way along his back. He turned to face Hannibal, painkillers already beginning to take effect, and was startled to see something vaguely resembling a pout on the other man’s face.

“Surely there is someone you can call.”

Will glanced around, locating his phone on the bedside table, likely Hannibal’s work. He turned it on and was relieved when he saw several texts from Beverly.

_ My idiot brother got into a car accident, broke his leg. Totally fine otherwise. I’m mad he made me miss the rest of the party. Did you have fun? _

_ Oh, let me know how much the cab was so I can pay you back! _

_ Uhhh, I know you’re usually up by now, but I’m just going to assume you got wasted and are sleeping in. If you died at the party I’m gonna be really mad at you. _

_ FEED YOUR DOG GRAHAM _

“I can ask Beverly,” Will eventually answered, and then did so.  _ I’m alive, I promise. Any way you could feed Winston today and we’ll call it even? Thx  _ He flipped his phone upside down on the table, so the massive wave of texts he knew was incoming would not be visible. “It should be fine.”

Hannibal smiled at him. “Shall we begin with breakfast?”

It seemed that Hannibal took the day after his parties off and had his staff do the same, so they had the building to themselves. Hannibal made them omelettes, the best Will had ever eaten, they cleaned up, and then Hannibal hauled Will up onto the kitchen counters and sucked his soul straight out through his dick.

He vanished upstairs and came back down with a washcloth in one hand and Will’s phone in the other. “It seems to have vibrated off the table,” he explained, handing Will his phone before kneeling to wipe him off, a gesture Will appreciated greatly as his brain rebooted. “She appears to be texting you about vegetables.”

Will groaned, and unlocked his phone to find an almost endless stream of eggplant emojis in their chat history. He scrolled up to see her initial reply ( _ oh you motherfucker yeah I’ll feed your POOR ABANDONED DOG but this doesn’t count for shit because I’m not paying for a cab you never took _ ), texted her  _ SHUT UP,  _ put his phone on silent, and set it on the counter where it lay forgotten for the rest of the day. He kicked his foot out, sending Hannibal backwards into the kitchen island, then slid off the counter, sank to his knees, and returned the favor.

He spent a lot of time at Hannibal’s house from that point on. Hannibal would come to his as well, though the older man was not as free to leave his residence as Will was, seeing as it was also his place of business. The nights they spent apart were starting to feel more and more like an obligation, a way to appear more proper to an outside viewer.

It was all moving too quickly, he knew that, but he did not care. It felt like he had known Hannibal for eternity, or maybe even been made just for him, his life previous just being a way to while the time away until they met. The mindset was dangerous, and while Will was well aware of the honeymoon phase, no matter how long he waited for it to pass, it never did.

Tonight, specifically, he was glad to be alone, because his phone rang just before one in the morning, whisking him away to a brightly lit warehouse with nothing but a small army of FBI agents, a dead woman, and an ocean of color.

She was sprawled on her back, clad in a white dress, though it was stained by its surroundings. Her body looked almost untouched other than the deathly pale skin, almost translucent, bloodless. Large vats of color sat in a circle around her, the colors of the rainbow, but they had been overturned away from her, flooding the floor of the building, save for the yellow, which had been tipped inwards instead. Will stood above, on the walkways, gazing down, and closed his eyes.

She is strapped to a chair, fear evident in her eyes. In one arm, a needle pierces the vein in her arm, and her blood rushes out of it, filling up bags of her blood. He has slowed the process, so it leaves her body faster than she can produce more, but not enough to bleed her to death quickly and spare her the suffering. He will watch as she dies slowly. It is simple, but he has grander plans for her design, and most of his energy is being put towards that.

It’s boring.

Will blinks, and she is laying on a table, raised up above a huge empty basin he has set to catch her blood. The walls are white, the floor is white, the basin is white, the table is white. In his hand sits a hunting knife. His shoulder burns. He steps forward.

When he cuts in, it is along her shoulder, and he watches the blood well forth. It is red, bright in a way it should not remain, but it flows slowly. Impatient, he continues the cut, all the way down her arm, through her upturned hand, and out her middle finger. Now it flows freely, staying the same vivid shade, the flow never slowing long past the moment all the blood should have left her body. He repeats the cut on her other side and watches as the basin fills, deep enough to drown in.

Now, he plunges the knife into her neck and wrenches it downwards, opening up her body for him. He knows, somehow, that he will not harm the organs, and needs to cut deep to release them from their prison. The skin and flesh peels away easily, the ribs going just as quickly, as if her body knows his intention and is assisting him in every way possible. At last, beneath his hands, the sheen of organs is revealed, and they all twitch and squirm as if they have a life of their own. He drops the knife, and it clatters off the platform and falls into the lake below.

The lungs sit on top, and he wraps his hand around one and tugs violently. When it pops free it begins thrashing in his grip and he drops it with a laugh, watching to ensure it finds its way into its home below before freeing its twin. Next, the liver comes easily, the strands and veins holding it down tearing with little effort. This one, he walks to the edge and drops in himself, and watches as it glides along in the liquid below. The stomach inflates like a pufferfish when it hits the water, and Will laughs once more when it deflates to its normal size once the shock wears off. He has to be quick when he gets to the kidneys, flinging them into the water before their sharp teeth can bite into his fingers. Organ after organ is restored to their rightful place, the intestines in particular proving tricky as they wind up his arms while he tries to extract them. The large intestine he manages to haul down into the water, but the small he can only drop to the ground and trust it will return on its own strength.

Soon, he stares into the hollowed out body, only the heart waiting to be brought home. It is delicate, he knows this, and if he is not careful he will crush it once more. The aorta and other arteries are thick, but he pinches and twists them, finally able to sever them entirely. He holds the heart in his hand, gazes at it in wonder, but he has made the mistake of tilting the aorta opening towards himself and is soon drenched in a defensive gush of blood. “That was my fault,” he mutters, and then he crouches down and drops the heart into the ocean, watching as the sides ripple along the edges, arteries twisting behind like tentacles.

Will opens his eyes and finds he has never felt more steady in his entire life.

He calls them back, and Jack and Beverly join him on the walkways, watching the techs mark the edges of the paint before it is destroyed. Price and Zeller are arguing on the edge, seemingly trying to decide how to approach the body while doing the least amount of damage possible. “Maybe we could hang them from the ceiling,” Beverly suggests, and the look Jack gives her says he’s not entirely sure that she is joking. 

“The red isn’t paint,” Will cuts in, because it the most urgent piece of information he needs to convey. Jack swears.

“The red is blood!” he shouts down, and for a moment everyone stops, and they turn to look at the body in unison, the new macabre information swirling in their minds. Zeller snaps back to life first, walking the perimeter, searching for the easiest path to the body that does not have the blood leaking in. He had taken photos from above earlier, before Will arrived, and knew what the overall picture looked like.

Price scurries after him, and they carefully tiptoe through the paint, halting once they reach the ring of overturned basins.

“He bled her out,” Will commented, pointing down to the red streaks. “Slowly, just fast enough that she couldn’t make back the blood she lost. That’s why there’s so much of it, compared to a more immediate draining.”

“Any clue who it is?” Jack turned to Beverly, now, who was frowning down at the body.

“I think so, but I’m not really sure why she was killed,” Beverly said slowly. “Unless it’s someone who just looks similar. She regularly asked her fans, mostly younger girls, to message her directly with their personal issues, promising to give them advice and guidance. As far as I’m aware, she never answered a single one.” She sighed and rubbed a hand across her forehead, a nervous habit she had picked up from Will in their college days. “Pretty shitty, but not remotely on the same level as the rest of the victims.”

“Mary didn’t do much,” Jack pointed out, and Will finally turned to look at them both.

“She was connected to two pretty foul men,” Will said, thinking. “You could make a compelling case for her being complicit. Maybe the killer knows more about this victim than we all do.”

“I’ll look into it.” Beverly leaned over the railing, taking in the colors and the order they were in. “Do we think the rainbow is important?”

“Not to her crimes, perceived or otherwise,” Will said quickly. “Only the meaning of the display.”

Jack held out a hand, pointing down at the body in the center and the yellow soaking into her clothes. “Think that was a mistake?”

“He doesn’t make mistakes.”

At that, Jack frowned. “The metal containers holding the paints are large, and I imagine heavy. It’s reasonable to assume he lost control of one. Not everyone can match the precision of the Ripper, Will.”

On cue, both Beverly and Will stiffened. Neither of them had approached Jack with their theory yet, Beverly having forgotten the plan, and Will having been somewhat… distracted, as of late. Jack’s gaze grew sharp, and he turned it on Will, who he knew would have far less excuses for him. “Out with it.”

“We’ve… had a theory, for a while. It seemed wild, but every body makes it less so.” Will swallowed, and met Jack’s gaze. “I think this  _ is _ the Ripper.”

“The early kills don’t match the Ripper’s level of skill,” Jack argued, but his brow was furrowed, and Will knew he was considering it.

“He could have easily faked it to throw us off his trail. This killer started not long after the Ripper went dormant. Maybe he was just bored.”

“If it is the Ripper…” Beverly trailed off, looking out into the distance. They were all thinking the same thing.

“Let’s pray that it isn’t,” Jack grumbled.

Jack, it seemed, thought enough of Will’s theory that he released all of Lecter’s files, since the Ripper could never be predicted in that manner. They had copied them, anyways, and there was no real reason to hold onto the originals any longer. The next time Will went to Hannibal, he brought the box with him.

“I had nearly forgotten you had those,” Hannibal admitted, after greeting Will at the door.

Will handed the box off to him. “You nearly forgot intentionally withholding evidence?”

“I remember that it worked.”

“You’re lucky I’m the same kind of crazy you are,” Will muttered, shrugging off his coat and hanging it in the closet. 

Hannibal regarded him, a strange smile on his face. “Indeed I am,” he murmured.

They ate as usual, thought Will was unusually silent, something he did not notice until Hannibal brought it up. “You seem anxious,” he said, later, when they were washing the dishes together. He handed Will a plate, which he took to dry.

“It’s work,” Will explained, sighing. “It gets to me sometimes.”

“While you cannot tell be about your job, perhaps you can tell me how it is making you feel?”

Will considered that. If he spoke in abstracts, only on his reactions, there was no real danger of telling Hannibal too much. The case had been eating at him ever since they had found the previous body, and no matter how many times he turned it around in his head, nothing seemed to fit. Even worse, he reconstructions had become nearly useless, instead transforming into violent fantasies of his own creation. “Unhinged,” he laughed, and set the plate in the drying rack. “It’s like I’m trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, but all the edge pieces are missing. The framework isn’t there and the insides are jumbled to the point of uselessness.

“Overthinking things can be just as dangerous as under-thinking them,” Hannibal advised, handing Will one of the glasses they had used. 

“I don’t think I could stop thinking about him if I tried.” He turned the glass over in his hands, lost in the patterns etched into the glass. “Sometimes I feel like when I’m not with you, I’m with him.”

“Are you afraid he is becoming too familiar?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to miss him when he’s gone,” Will clarified, and he did not see the way that Hannibal smiled.


	5. I Admire You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will has a breakthrough, and actually enjoys a trip to an art gallery.

“It’s bad,” Jack warned when he called. “I’m not sure if you’ll even be able to help, honestly.”

“I’m on my way.” Will hung up the phone, and made it to the forest faster than he probably should have.

Even Price looked queasy when he passed him. He was met by Jack in the clearing, a grim look on his face. In the center of the clearing, a human head sat, stood up perfectly among the wild grasses and flowers. Various items of food were flung across the area, many fruits, shreds of meat, and even offal by the looks of it. “Is it just the head?” Will asked, glancing around. There was plenty of blood, but no further remains, by the looks of it.

“No,” Jack answered, at the exact moment Will’s eyes landed on shards of human bone, and he then understood the true nature of the meat.

“I can try,” Will offered. He had never tried to reconstruct so many pieces.

“That’s all I can ask,” Jack sighed, and left.

When Will opens his eyes, he is running. The forest is his home, and his pace does not falter, even as he weaves in between the many trees. He is not alone, another form running beside him, both of them working together to chase the same prey. The man is running, slower, and they will catch him eventually, for they are much faster, and will have him soon.

The prey stumbles into a clearing and Will is on him in seconds, teeth at his throat, biting down and tearing outwards, pulling the flesh and trachea away from the spine, leaving the man gasping blood and twitching uselessly. He claws at his prey’s skin, shredding it, pulling great chunks off and tossing them around with the force of his movements, painting the clearing red. Something catches his hand, halts him, and when he snarls and looks to see who dares to interrupt him, is struck breathless by the pitch-black figure, crowned in twisting antlers. It presses an object into his hand, then backs away, fading into the shadows of the trees around them.

A hunting knife. Will raises it above his head, more man than beast now, and plunges it down into the man’s chest, over and over, until all that remains is oozing mass of pulverized flesh. At the edge of the clearing, there is a powder blue shape, a red stain spreading across the center, a pool of blood expanding beneath it. A hat has rolled away, a black peaked cap, a badge on the front, and Will drops the hunting knife. His shoulder is screaming with pain, a wet sensation dripping down his arm, and he opens his eyes.

“Torn apart by wild beasts,” Will whispers, then he is no longer alone. “Not literally,” he added, pointing towards the carefully preserved head. “But that’s the… inspiration, for lack of a better word.”

Beverly had a sour look on her face. “Can’t say I’m too upset about this one. Women have been coming forward about this guy, although he never had the chance to be convicted.”

“Orchids,” Jack murmured, and both Beverly and Will looked over at him. “They were Bella’s favorite flower, and she was fond of telling me the legend behind them. During a feast in honor of Dionysus, Orchis attempted to rape a priestess, and was ripped apart by beasts as punishment, with orchids springing from his corpse.”

“Orchids…?” Around Will, the world skidded and stuttered to a halt, and he felt the edges of something beginning to solidify. “Jack, the Ripper has used flowers in his displays before, right?”

“Several,” Jack confirmed. 

“I-I need to go,” Will stuttered, turning to leave the clearing. 

Beverly caught his arm. “Do you need help?” she asked. She knew Will well enough to know when he was about to spiral into the depths of something, and would only emerge when he had his answers. 

He shook his head. “I can do this alone. I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out.”

Jack seemed reluctant to let him go, but had seen Will go through this before, and at the end they had caught a killer that had eluded them for nearly a decade.

When he arrived home, case files in hand, he had the presence of mind to text Hannibal and let him know he may be unreachable for a time. That done, he spread the files around him, stood, and took in the bigger picture.

If this was the Ripper, every aspect of the displays mattered. It was mostly a feeling, but he stacked all the kills before the Mary kill and put them to the side; all but the cross had been falsely clumsy, with the crucifixion being an obvious joke, the exact sort of whimsy the Ripper reveled in. The most recent kill had made the framing so painfully obvious that Will nearly kicked himself for not noticing it sooner. Some of the flowers were evident, the golden arrow revealing amaryllis with very little research, and the eagle and coyote kill transforming into ranunculus. Mary took some research, mostly due to the sheer amount of flowers associated with the figure, but only carnations sprouted forth from her tears over the crucifixion. In time, the Virgo kill gave him asters, but he soon found himself stuck once more on the woman in the white dress, adrift in the expanse of color.

When he focused on the rainbow itself and ignored the separation of colors involved, an hour of sifting through weird new-age bullshit eventually led him to irises, and he thanked whatever entity may have been listening that the goddess involved shared her name with the flower, or else he may have never worked it out. This, unfortunately, turned out to be the easy part.

He spent great lengths of time looking into the meanings the flowers held and trying to tie them to the bodies. Initially, he believed them to be virtues the victims lacked, but that stalled when he got the amaryllis, meaning beauty. Ranunculus barely fit in any form, the closest he could get being the victim would have had to be charming in order to pull of a scam of the size that he had. Iris did not mesh at all, and orchids fit so well it just made the rest of them make less sense. 

Hannibal turned up after three days, unable to contain his concern, and bundled Will and the stack of files into his car before driving them all back to his own house. He allowed him the usage of a locked room, one he gave Will the only key to, but kept a close eye on the man, ensuring that he ate, slept, and bathed every day. Will had tried to dodge him at first, but Hannibal was quite good at predicting his movements, on one memorable occasion waiting for him outside the bathroom before throwing him over a shoulder and carting him off to bed. Eventually, Will realized the rest was beneficial, and after his mind stopped running in circles he discovered that color was a factor as well. Not all of them were so specific, only two seeming to matter, but finally understanding the meaning of the paints was a great relief. 

He wasn’t proud to admit the final piece had come to him when he was fucking Hannibal. Something about allowing it all to empty from his mind, rotate and reform before returning, often led him to new connections. “They’re for us,” he panted, when they were laying on the bed afterwards. “I need to call Jack.”

“It can wait for the morning,” Hannibal groaned, and so it did.

They all met at Quantico the next day. Will had made full use of the whiteboards lining this particular meeting room, laying out all the information he had discovered, long lists of words underneath the flowers in particular. “I’m going to tell you right now that I’m missing a pretty key part of this,” he warned, once the usual group was all with him. “But we’ve been looking at this from the wrong perspective. Each of the kills is inspired by a flower, and each flower has a meaning. We can consider everything before the Mary kill a sort of… warm up.

“The Virgin Mary kill is simple. The body was clearly weeping, and when Mary’s tears hit the ground at the crucifixion, carnations sprouted from where they fell. Next, the Virgo kill; Virgo is pretty closely associated with asters, and I think the brands were meant to convey color. Pink is the most likely, but they can also heal white in some circumstances. The golden arrow kill is based off a myth of Amaryllis, where she pierced her heart with a golden arrow to win the affection of her beloved. The wings… ranunculus is also known as coyote’s eyes. For the paint, rainbows are the symbol of the goddess Iris, and the yellow was spilled inwards because that’s the color he wants us to look at.”

“So you’re sure this is the Ripper?” Jack asked, and Will nodded.

“I know it is, because no one else would send a message in such an obtuse manner, and he is undoubtedly sending a message.”

“What’s the message?” Price piped up, and Will winced.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I spent so long trying to connect the meanings to the bodies, which was a waste of time. Some of them can be found pretty easily since he’s given us the colors; pink asters are sensitivity, love and charm, while yellow irises are passion.”

“So he’s writing a note with a trail of bodies.” Zeller crossed his arms, looking at the mess Will had made of the whiteboards. “That’s normal. Who’s it for?”

Will shrugged. “He knows it’s us who find the bodies, but that doesn’t mean they’re  _ meant  _ for any of us. Still, we should all be careful, going forwards. No way of knowing who the lucky winner is.”   


“You said we’ve been looking at this from the wrong perspective,” Jack cut in. “How so?”

“Because he’s not writing messages based on who he wants to kill,” Will answered, mouth downturned. “He’s killing people that allow him to send the messages he intends to send.”

“If he’s writing a letter then we better catch him before he gets to the end.” Jack stood, and Price and Zeller stood with him. “Will, keep working on this, see if there’s any way you can work backwards and see where this is going. The rest of you, come with me. We have a lot of work to do.”

Beverly hung back, remaining seated as the others left the room. “You okay?” Will asked, and she finally stood.

“I’m worried.” When she looked up at him, the anxiety he saw ran deep inside. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“To me?” Will frowned. “I’m in no more danger than anyone else here, you know.”

“No, Will,” she said, softly. “I’m worried because the only way this all makes sense to me is if the one he’s writing messages to is you.”

She left, leaving the crushing pressure in the room behind, and Will stared at the door she left through until the motion controlled lights shut off, leaving the room in darkness.

He did not tell Hannibal. It was nothing but a worry at the moment, and even if it was unequivocally true, all telling Hannibal would accomplish is doubling his anxiety and possibly even putting the man in danger. 

It probably wasn’t even true, anyways.

No matter how hard he tried, Will could not find a single reason as to why the Ripper would be sending messages to him. He was essentially a nobody, not even an official agent for the FBI. Based on the general theme of the messages, it was much more likely to him that the Ripper was sending them to someone outside of the FBI entirely, someone they had some type of personal relationship with. More likely, it could be someone with access to FBI files, legitimate or otherwise. Will understood Beverly’s concerns, but did not share them. 

What he was currently concerned about was what he had agreed to go to. A special gallery at the Baltimore Museum of Art, quite the fancy affair, and one he needed a little more than a nice jacket for. He did not currently have a suit, an obstacle Hannibal did not seem particularly bothered by, which led them to their current conversation.

“I have a tailor.” Hannibal seemed adamant that whatever suit Will acquired would come from a source he trusted, which was the main point of contention at the moment.

“I doubt I can afford your tailor,” Will scoffed. “I can just go to Men’s Warehouse or something.” He wouldn’t, but it was worth saying for the visible wince it drew out of Hannibal.

“We have a working relationship,” Hannibal said primly. “I often send clients his way for weddings, and he does the reverse. Because of this, we give each other very reasonable rates on personal services.”

“Isn’t the gallery this weekend? There’s barely even time to get an existing suit altered. I’ll just buy something that’s close enough.”

“If price is an obstacle-”

Will cut Hannibal off here, not even wanting to consider what he had been about to offer. He deflected. “Didn’t you tell me you would accept me in rags?”

“That does not mean I wouldn’t rather see you in a well-made suit,” Hannibal shot back, eyes bright. Will sighed.

“And when would I be able to see this tailor of yours?”

“Tomorrow, I would think.” Hannibal looked very pleased, in the way people did when they achieved the result they had expected all along. “Would you like me to come as well?”

Over the course of his life, Will had been fitted for a suit a grand total of one time, for his father’s funeral. It had been uncomfortable and invasive, not an event he was looking forward to repeating. “Uh… not really, but I’m liable to run away if you don’t, so you probably should.”

“Then we shall go together. If you have a pattern or style in mind, he can have a selection of suits ready for us.”

“Oh, I’ve got nothing,” Will laughed, “but I get the feeling you have some suggestions of your own.”

Hannibal, it turns out, did in fact have ideas for this particular area. Too many, Will would have argued, and he was alarmed to find that Hannibal’s own unique taste in suits was in no way limited to himself. He talked him down and ended up with a slate-grey three piece suit with a thin check pattern running through it, a deep navy blue. The tie and pocket square (he had a  _ pocket square  _ now) matched the blue, both with a paisley pattern embroidered onto them, invisible unless caught by the light. A crisp white shirt completed the look, and while Hannibal had approached him with flowers to pin on the lapel, he sent him away, insisting that this was not a wedding or anything of the kind. “Another time,” Hannibal had murmured, but he took the flowers away. 

They arrived at the gallery just after it officially opened, long before most of high society arrived fashionably late. After stepping out of the car, Hannibal spent a brief moment settling Will’s suit, smoothing the wrinkles and straightening the tie. “How would you prefer I introduce you?” he then asked.

“Probably with my name,” Will answered, which earned him an amused glance from Hannibal.

“Gossiping is one of the wealthy’s favorite hobbies,” he elaborated. “If the idea of being talked about bothers you, I can refrain from introducing you in certain manners.”

Will blinked, and stepped back. “Hey,” he said gently, lifting a hand to cup Hannibal’s jaw. The other man’s eyes flicked up from where they had remained at his tie, meeting his eyes. “I honestly don’t give a fuck what any of these people think, so introduce me however you want to.”

At that, Hannibal smiled. He leaned forward and gave Will a chaste kiss, and then they went to enter the event proper.

Somewhat distressingly, Hannibal had decided to take Will’s initial suggestion and run with it, introducing him to everyone as ‘Will Graham’ and providing nothing else. The reactions ranged from mild confusion, ignoring the man entirely, or on at least one extremely amusing occasion, acting as if they knew  _ exactly  _ who the man was based on name alone. “You know,” Will whispered to Hannibal in one of the brief moments in between him being approached, “when I said however you wanted, I wasn’t expecting you to introduce me like I was a celebrity.”

“It seems to be cutting conversations short so they can whisper about who the mysterious ‘Will Graham’ may be,” Hannibal whispered back, a conspiratorial grin on his face. Will found himself laughing.

“You know, for someone so deeply entrenched in the socialite world, you sure seem to hate a lot of it.”

Hannibal looked like he was about to respond, but someone approached them, and he turned to face them instead. Someone Will recognized, he realized; the woman from the festival, thankfully with no child this time. He took a sip of the wine he was holding.

“Hello, Hannibal,” she greeted, and he responded in turn. “Who is your companion?”

“This is Will Graham,” Hannibal said for what felt like the hundredth time tonight. As usual, Will smiled and said nothing.

She, however, turned to look at him. “I haven’t brought my grandchild for you to run away from, this time.”

It seemed like Will wasn’t the only one who remembered. Thankfully, she was not angry, only poking fun at him. “Sorry about that,” he apologized, and on some level, he was. “I’m bad with strangers and even worse with children.”

“Something you seem to have gotten over, at least for tonight.” She turned back to Hannibal. “People are in a tizzy about your mysterious companion. Are the two of you playing some sort of game?”

“If so, Hannibal is the only one playing,” Will answered, which caused Hannibal to produce a small smile.

“You never could resist stringing the lot of us along,” Komeda sighed. “Well then, I suppose I should go add my own fuel to the fire. Have a good rest of your night.”

Eventually, the stream of people introducing themselves tapered off, and the gallery area was opened up. Most seemed content to remain socializing, but the pair slipped into the gallery immediately.

There was a clear route you were supposed to take through the rooms, one that took you through a tour of the artist’s life, in a way. It began with engravings- “Not all that Goya produced in this period,” Hannibal explained. “He created many paintings, particularly tapestries, both alongside these and long before. They tend to overshadow the engravings, which may be why the gallery has chosen to show these instead.”

Will stopped in front of an engraving of a man sitting against a high-backed wooden chair, legs stretched out before him, a cross in his grip. Some sort of thick cord was wrapped tightly around the man’s neck, and his eyes were closed, obviously dead. “These seem… personal, almost.”

Hannibal smiled, pleased with Will’s deduction. “I think you will find that it was increasingly difficult for Goya to keep his personal opinions out of his work as his life went on.”

Next they were in an area filled with paintings of nobility, dressed in finery, but even still some pieces were off. In one, the focus appeared to be dressed in bedclothes; in another, the king himself was standing off to the side and instead his wife commanded the attention in the center. “They couldn’t have been happy with these,” Will murmured, looking around. “Especially this one.” He was looking at a painting of a man reclining on a chair, posture suggesting arrogance, a baton sitting suggestively between his legs. 

“Godoy actually thought very highly of Goya, even after he was exiled. Perhaps he appreciated his wit, even if it was often barbed.” Hannibal was not looking at the paintings when he said this, and Will shot him a withering look.

They passed a painting of a naked woman on the way out of the first room. “Often thought to be the first nude without mythological or metaphorical meaning,” Hannibal had mentioned. The second room had darker walls, a deep gray. Will gravitated towards more etchings, and Hannibal followed. “A serious illness left him deaf, and he became withdrawn. There are eighty of these etchings, in total.”

There were far fewer than eighty present, quite reasonably. Some were horrifying; a circle of men screaming at a frightened man, teeth protruding like donkeys; a man crouching with two bags full of a hidden substance, men with puffy, squashed faces leering at him; a woman shaving a man, a suspicious look on her face, fear on his. Fewer but still present were some clearly satirical, such as a woman pulling teeth out of the swinging body of a man who had just been hung. “The coming war affected him greatly,” Hannibal continued. “He had another set of etchings that appear to be absent titled  _ The Disasters of War. _ ”

“I think I can imagine what those are like,” Will replied. 

“They are quite brutal,” Hannibal expanded. They moved on.

There were paintings, now, bleak and dull. Men in a small cell, crazed looks in their eyes, fighting amongst themselves. Another, while brighter, was still more men confined to a space too small for them. Some were naked, some adorned in crowns and jewels, many simply huddled together in the shadows. “He was afraid he was going insane,” Will murmured. “That he would be here next.”

“No one knows for sure what illness plagued him,” Hannibal confirmed, smiling. “Only that he did not emerge entirely mentally intact. It is very much possible that while nothing was truly wrong with his mind, he was so afraid of there being so that he drove himself insane.”

Will sucked in a breath. The words affected him, though he could not entirely pinpoint why. “I’m going to look around,” he said, intending to go back to the etchings. He knew Hannibal was drawn to the paintings in the same manner, and did not want to pull him away. Hannibal nodded, and he split off.

He was across the room when he saw it. A door, the same color as the walls, and easy to miss. It opened when he tried the handle, and he entered the room within.

It was large, but felt crushing and oppressive. The walls were black, the only lighting what was used to illuminate the large paintings, which hung with no labels. He wondered if he was even supposed to be in here, but it seemed to be set up in the same way the rest of the gallery was, and the door  _ had _ been unlocked, and he felt the pull of the paintings. They were bizarre, each in its own unique way. They were painted in dark tones, mostly black and browns, with some splashes of color. In all of them the faces were more suggestions than true faces, at times distorted and twisted. He walked past paintings with strange compositions far beyond their time, like heads clustered in a corner or the tiny head of a dog resting near the bottom of an open canvas. His footsteps halted naturally in front of a vertical painting. It was of a man, if it could even be called one, crouched and holding an object in his hands. The form of the man was unnatural, the lines not connecting where they should and the proportions not following the rules of nature. His face was an almost crazed anguish as he ate the object he was holding, the corpse of a man, lined with bright red blood.

“ _ Saturn Devouring His Son. _ ” 

Will nearly jumped out of his skin at the words, as he had not heard anyone enter the room, but was unsurprised to find Hannibal standing beside him. “What is this room?” he asked.

“A set of paintings I was not expecting to find,” Hannibal answered. “The  _ Black Paintings. _ In his final years, he moved into a two-story house and spent the rest of his days painting these on its walls.”

Will was unable to tear his eyes away from  _ Saturn _ . “Life finally got to him,” he murmured, entranced. “This was his way of coping. He never intended these to be displayed, did he.”

“It is doubtful.” 

“Yet here we are, looking at them in a gallery.” Now, he tore his eyes free, and glanced over to Hannibal.

“One could argue that there are things so beautiful that they should never be hidden away.” Hannibal was looking at  _ Saturn _ now, face impassive.

“Even against the wishes of their creators?”

Hannibal looked down, into Will’s eyes, and was silent for a time before answering. “Against the wishes of whoever seeks to see them smothered.”

Will looked away. “These feel like seeing deep into his soul and facing the torment he endured.”

“Actually,” Hannibal cut in. “There is some debate over the authenticity of the paintings, with some believing them to have been painted by his son instead. What do you believe?”

“I think it shouldn’t matter,” Will scoffed, but he looked around, took in the paintings around him before answering seriously. “I think they’re his.”

“As do I,” Hannibal smiled. They left the black room.

Far later, at Hannibal’s home, the man was preparing for sleep when Will reached for his phone, intending to turn it off. Instead, he found a text from Beverly.  _ They dug up the article about you. I’ll keep a close eye on it, but it might be a good idea to tell Jack. _

He went to the post on Instagram and scrolled to the bottom of the comments. Sure enough, someone had linked Lounds’ borderline hit piece she had written about him right after Hobbs. The responses seemed to be mixed, with an alarming number of comments about flower crowns, but it wasn’t as if he particularly cared about what the average Instagram user though of him. What was more important was that the article had resurfaced. While Hannibal did not use social media, the added traffic meant there was now a danger of it turning up organically. He had to tell him before he found it and came to his own conclusions.

Will was still trying to decide how to approach this when Hannibal climbed into bed beside him and did it for him. “Is there something wrong?”

“I need to tell you something,” he sighed, deciding it was better to just rip the band-aid off immediately. 

“If this is about Garret Jacob Hobbs, I feel I must inform you that I already know. It was very big news when it happened.”

“It’s not,” Will grumbled, “though it’s nice to know just how far that got. A… less reputable journalist wrote an article about me, after that happened, and dug up something from my past. The article has had a lot of exposure recently, and I… wanted to tell you myself, before you happen across it and find out that way.”

“Tell me, Will,” Hannibal said softly. “I will not think differently of you for it.”

Will rolled onto his back, eyes locked on the ceiling. “I was a cop in New Orleans, before I worked at Quantico. A detective, more specifically. They gave me a rookie, one day, meant to shadow me and learn the ropes. It was the very first case he went on.” He closed his eyes, and saw the events unfold before him. “We were interviewing suspects. I had a good idea of who the perp was, but didn’t warn the rookie when we went to interview him, and the guy spooked. He got the jump on us, stabbed me in the shoulder with a hunting knife.” He felt a light touch on his shoulder, over the prominent scar. Hannibal had never asked, simply waiting for the time that Will saw fit to tell him. “While I was down, he killed- Johnathon, his name was Johnathon. Slit his throat. So I shot him dead.”

“You did only what you needed to,” Hannibal whispered, and Will felt his lips press against his scar.

“Yeah, well, the aftermath wasn’t great. I didn’t handle it well, ended up retired from the force and in therapy for a while. Eventually I got the offer from Quantico, and moved up here.”

“There is no shame in seeking help. I am glad you felt safe enough to tell me, even if your hand was forced. I only hope that someday you will feel safe enough to tell me everything.”

Will’s blood ran cold. Surely he had just meant in general terms, there was no way he could possibly know, almost  _ no one _ knew-

Hannibal kissed his forehead. “Sleep, Will,” he murmured, and, eventually, his anxiety waned, and he did. 

It only took a week for another body to turn up. It was a young man, body stood and posed like a mannequin, posture relaxed and hips slightly tilted. He had been skinned, body glistening red, and on his upper body the skin had been fashioned into a suit, sewn together with what seemed to be his hair. A beautiful white flower was tucked into the jacket pocket.

“He knows that we know,” Will muttered, eyes locked onto the flower. “Doesn’t need to be obtuse if we’ve already caught on, and frees him up to do things more in line with his style.”

“Why only the jacket?” Price wondered aloud. “Our man is naked from the waist down.”

“Didn’t have enough material,” Will answered quietly, and Price winced. 

"Alright,” Jack barked, “everybody out.” They obeyed, but Beverly seem reluctant to leave Will alone, only leaving when Will shooed her away.

He closed his eyes, and was almost surprised by where he found himself when he opened them.

The white room is around him, the drain in the center, as it always is. A mannequin stands in the center, in a familiar relaxed posture, the body a pure blank white. It’s ugly, a blight, not deserving of the space it occupies. Will approaches it and kicks it to the ground. 

The thud it makes when it connects with the floor sounds like living flesh meeting unyielding tile, not the plastic it appears to be made of. Testing, curious, Will kicks it again in the side, feeling the way it indents slightly and springs back into shape once his foot returns to him. It is unusual, something that should not be able to exist, so Will has no choice but to destroy it. He moves to the head, raises his foot, and stomps down with all of his might.

The head of the doll bursts like a balloon, sending streaks of gold across the room, some splashing up to coat the leg of Will’s pants. Beneath his foot, chunks of gold are pressed flat, somewhere between a solid and a liquid. When he removes his foot they make an effort to spring back into shape, but most have been crushed beyond hope of retaining their original form. He crouches, picks a piece up, and smells it- it only smells faintly of offal, and nothing more. Disappointed, he looks down at the body of the mannequin, now headless, and an idea strikes him. He stands.

He tries the torso first, surprised at how easily it gives way to the force of his foot. It is almost difficult to pull the extremity free but he manages, laughing when it gives a sickening ‘pop’ before emerging covered in gold. The body feels like it is missing bones, instead yielding to his blows and allowing him to crush it into pulp. It is not long before the chunks of gold have clogged the drain and the liquid streams begin to pool at Will’s feet. He has stomped several more holes into the body, and looking at the glimmering insides and the sea of shining gold, the picture is beautiful.

Will frowns, because this man does not deserve beautiful. He realizes what he has inadvertently done, and is enraged.

When he next brings down his foot, it bounces off the body like rubber, and he growls. He falls to his knees, tries to tear the gold apart instead, but the white surface of the body is too tough and will not tear no matter how much force he uses. If only he had something sharp, to cut through it- his hand brushes against something sharp inside the body, and it draws blood. If he sticks his hand inside the gold directly, it meets no resistance, and he feels around gingerly until his fingers curl around the handle of a knife, the tip of the blade pointed towards him. He pulls, but it is stuck, and he pulls with all his might until it comes free, barely giving him enough time to jerk to the side and avoid plunging it into his face. It slices his cheek open, but that is minor, and easily survivable, so it does not matter.

The weight of the knife is familiar, and it cuts through the skin easily. He finds that if he cuts the pieces small enough, he can crush them in his palm, sending the golden fluid down to add to the growing pool. He presses the pieces of white skin to the bottom, and they do not float back to the top. It takes time but is almost relaxing, cutting out the small cubes of skin and flesh until the white has vanished entirely. He flips the body over, removing the skin from the back as well, only satisfied when no trace of white remains.

What he is left with is something vaguely in the shape of a man, a golden shape, and it ripples beneath his touch. He sets the knife aside and leans forward, bracing his palms on the form, and presses down. They sink deeper, the surface stretching to its limit, until finally it gives way. All at once, his hands fall through and he connects with the floor, the gold inside exploding outwards, painting both Will and the room a brilliant, shining gold. Will laughs, full of joy, and when it hits his tongue, it tastes of iron, not gold.

Will opens his eyes with a full body shudder. He must have called them back at some point, because the team is soon on the scene again, Jack looking at him expectantly. “It, uh…” Will pauses, trying to figure out just how to put it into words. “It wasn’t personal, not quite, but whoever this was pissed the Ripper off in a way the others didn’t.”

“Can’t really ID someone with no skin,” Beverly sighed, arms crossed. 

“He was wealthy,” Will continued. “I’m guessing he did little to earn it and regularly took it for granted. We all… the Ripper has to have quite a lot of money as well, to pull off the things he does. Unlike this person, there’s a good chance he had to earn it, or at the very least is highly aware of just how lucky he is. It angers him to see someone so willfully ignorant.”

“Obnoxiously wealthy influencers is a depressing large category, but I’ll look for someone that fits the bill.” Jack nodded, and Beverly left, presumably to do some research.

“So was he killed simply because the Ripper thought he was an eyesore?” Jack had turned back to face Will, arms crossed, just as Beverly’s had been.

Will shook his head. “While this is the same man, don’t forget that this is a different persona. He still chose the victim to fit his message, and it just so happens that he took an… extra measure of joy in butchering him.”

“It’s a casa blanca lily,” Zeller interjected after snapping a photo of the flower. “They’re pretty expensive.”

“That fits the victim profile you’ve given us,” Jack murmured, glancing over at the body. “Will, go look into the flower, see if you can connect the message. Let me know what you find.”

Will nodded, swallowing the words down before they could escape him, because he already knew what this flower meant, and had spent long enough dwelling on the message that it had finally formed for him. Instead, he took the escape he was offered, and locked himself in the office he had taken over in Quantico until he felt he had backtracked enough to be able to present the information to the rest of the team.

Several days later, it all came together. They were in Will’s room once more, the whiteboards so crammed with photos and writing that Beverly frowned at him upon entering, knowing how it had consumed him.

They had ID’d the body; the victim fit Will’s profile exactly. Jack had brought in a tailor who had been cleared to inspect the suit, and was given the following information- the killer had expansive knowledge of tailoring and suits in general, but while the execution was elegant, there were many small mistakes that gave away the true inexperience of the creator. “It would have narrowed it down a lot if the killer had been a tailor,” Price sighed. 

“I doubt the Ripper would have given himself away like that,” Beverly countered, hopping up onto one of the tables. “He’s not the type to leave clues to such a narrow profile.”

“Will, what do you have for us?” Jack interrupted, halting the speculation before it began.

“The message,” Will answered, eyes focused on the wall behind his audience. “I know what they all mean, now.”

Everyone fell silent, waiting for him to elaborate, and so he did. “The order is important, obviously. The Ripper… met someone. He started with carnations, which for him, are fascination and new love. It could be just a new fixation for him, but…”

“You think otherwise,” Jack finished, and Will nodded slowly.

“Pink asters are charm and sensitivity, while amaryllis are simply beauty. Up through here, he seems to be describing the recipient’s qualities, at least in his eyes, but then it… changes, in a way. Ranunculus was next, which is attraction, and radiance. The phrase ‘I’m dazzled by you’ came up quite a bit. Yellow irises represent passion, and next came orchids, giving us beauty, strength, and… a desire to connect physically.” He heard Beverly suck in a breath, but continued. “Now we’re at the lilies, and these particular ones stand for beauty, class, and style.”

Zeller spoke up, terse. “Are you saying that the Ripper is writing someone a fucking love letter?”

“That’s exactly what he’s doing,” Will bit back. 

Jack cut into the conversation, knowing full well how heated Will and Brian could get if left to their own devices. “The Ripper is a psychopath,” he said. “You created that profile yourself, Will. How can he even be capable of loving someone?”

“All I know is that there’s no chance his feelings are anything other than genuine,” Will replied. “The danger is in what he considers love to be.”

“And what’s that?” Zeller scoffed, still irritated.

Will shrugged. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “But I doubt we want to find out.”

They spoke further on the new information, trying to use it to narrow down the potential intended recipient, but it went nowhere, and they soon split. Zeller and Price exited, but Beverly hung back, and tapped Jack on the shoulder to indicate he should do the same. “This is probably nothing,” she said, pulling a red envelope out of her pocket, “but with the current circumstances I figured there should be other people here just in case.” She handed the envelope to Will, who took it slowly, noticing his name written on the front in cursive.

“Where did you get this?” he frowned. His first thought was that it had been from Hannibal, and Beverly was planning on embarrassing him in front of their boss, but it was not the other man’s handwriting. 

“Your office in the academy. I took it to the labs, had them run a few tests, and they told me the chances of it being dangerous were low.”

“Doesn’t mean it won’t be a clue,” Will muttered, ripping the top open ungracefully. It hadn’t lain flait, indicating more than paper was inside. He felt something soft, possibly silk, pinched it between his fingers and finally pulled out a pair of red, lacy panties.

He dropped them like he had been burned, and looked up just in time to see Beverly spinning and hurrying out of the room. “My office, Graham,” Jack said through gritted teeth, and Will followed him with his head tilted directly at the ground.

They sat in silence for a while, until it was finally broken by Jack. “Now Will, I don’t want to interfere in your personal life, but-”

“There’s no way they sent it,” Will interrupted, aware he had just dug himself a fresh new hole to climb into. 

“You’re not currently teaching, so it’s not from a student of yours. Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

No avoiding it now. Hesitantly, Will explained the photos of him that had been taken and the situation they had created, watching as the lines between Jack’s eyebrows grew deeper with every word. “And neither you nor Beverly saw fit to bring this to my attention?”

“We’ve both been watching it to see if it got out of hand,” Will protested. “It hadn’t, until now. They know that I teach here and that’s it.”

“I think this is something I should decide for myself. Show me the post.”

Will covered his face with his hands, but explained how to find the post, unwilling to go bring it up onto the computer directly. He sat like that for a while, eyes closed beneath his palms, trying to think of anything other than the fact that his  _ boss  _ was currently examining possibly the most embarrassing set of photos of him that existed. He was almost relieved when Jack got straight to the point.

“How long have you been seeing Dr. Lecter?”

“Long after he was cleared,” Will choked out, answering a slightly different question.

Jack leaned back in his chair, sighing. “Will, you need to tell me about these things. I could have taken care of this before it because an issue.”

Will dropped his hands to his side, stiffening. The air grew thick with tension. “You can’t just order someone someone to delete a post online. It would backfire.”

“I can protect you, Will,” Jack said, slowly. “We both know that I can.”

Will’s mouth flapped open. He desperately wanted to say something, but all words seemed to have left him.

The phone on Jack’s desk rang. “This is Crawford,” he answered, face falling as he spoke. 

“It’s way too soon,” Will protested weakly, once Jack had hung up the phone.

“Apparently the Ripper doesn’t think so,” he answered, face tight. “Let’s go.”

When they arrived, the smell was overpowering. Not of rot, but of flowers. They found a pit full of pure white gardenia blossoms, shining white bones mixed among them. Price rushed forward, pulling Jack aside before either of them spoke.

“You can’t look at this one, Will,” Jack said when he returned. “You will be taken to Quantico immediately for questioning.

Will opened his mouth to ask why, but then he saw a tech on the other side of the pit, a camera in his hands. It had a custom strap, a pattern he had seen before, when he looked at the profile photo of the one who had taken the photos of him in the ocean of flowers.

He snapped his mouth shut, nodded, and allowed himself to be led away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will's suit looks like [this,](https://imgur.com/a/zaGtcxv) though in another type of fabric and minus the flower, despite Hannibal's best efforts.
> 
> The collection of engravings that Will is entranced by are a selection of pieces from [_Los caprichos_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_caprichos), and while Goya's _Black Paintings_ are quite well known at this point, I would highly recommend [taking a look](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings) if you haven't already.


	6. I Want To Be Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will makes a choice he realizes he already made, long ago.

Will sits in an interrogation room, alone, for hours. He is never sure if it’s simply due to the slowly turning wheels of bureaucracy, or a genuine effort to break his composure.

He passes the time with a memory, another kill he had lived in, also accompanied by the overwhelming scent of flowers.

They had been sent to the body well after sunset, but they could not enter the room it was in because it was filled with a huge number of moths. It took specialists hours to capture all the insects safely, and there were still a handful fluttering around when they were finally allowed to investigate. One had landed on Will’s hand, tucked its wings back, its incredible camouflage causing it to be nearly indistinguishable from a browning leaf.

He shook it into one of the containers they had all been given before it could begin drinking his blood.

“It’ll be some time before we know what all the different moths are,” Jack had said. “All we know for sure is that there are vampire moths mixed in, which are not even close to native. We shouldn’t let any get out into the wild if we can help it.”

“Whatever these flowers are, they smell,” Beverly complained, pinching her nose shut. “At least it covers up the body.”

“It’s plumeria,” Will had answered, looking at the countless potted flowers lining the walls. “They spell especially strongly at night, in order to attract moths.”

They had cleared out soon after, leaving Will with the latest Ripper victim, and he dove head-first into the waters.

The man was already dead- Will had snapped his neck earlier. Inelegant, but he couldn’t deal with a body struggling against him if he intended to display this the way he wanted. He starts with a standard y incision, but when he peels the flesh back and away, he cuts it free entirely. The ribs are in the way, and he cuts them out with the bone saw he has brought, and sets them aside with the slabs of flesh. Some of the organs he has revealed will be far easier than the others, and so he begins with those, cutting away the top halves of the lungs and liver, exposing the interior to the world. He ties off the end of the stomach, not intending to risk puncturing the intestines, and then he uses long needles to extract the fluid from what organs contain them. Once they are drained, he opens those as well, taking care to clean the interiors so their future cargo will not be damaged. 

He considers removing the intestines entirely, but it would be a great deal of trouble for something that is already beautiful. Now that their homes have been prepared, he pushes away the discarded offal, and drags forward the many containers of cocoons.

They are placed with care, not for the beauty of the design, but to give the lives inside the greatest chance of emergence. In the hollowed out organs, like the stomach and bladder, he can fit many, but in the more solid ones he must carve out furrows in which they may rest. There is not enough room for all of them, and so he cuts up further, exposing and opening the trachea and larynx, filling them with a line of the fragile cocoons. He finds little spots he can fill more, gouging out the eyes with his thumbs and placing more there once he has cleaned the area, testing the large intestine and opening that when he deems it clear. Finally, he runs out, and everything is ready.

Will collects all of the leftover meat, gathering it in a large tarp to bring home and turn into compost. He says a little prayer for all the moths inside, and departs.

Now, back in the present, Will wonders how he never connected the two killers before. The door opens, and he prepares himself to answer the same questions he had answered countless times since he had been left in this grey, bleak room.

In the end, it’s Beverly who gets him out. The victim had vanished only the night before they found the body, and the only time Will had left Quantico was when she had dragged him out to a bar. There were more than enough photos to account for the entirety of the gap in time where he had not been locked in his office, working.

It was only a day later when Jack had them all gathered in, unexpectedly, the morgue, a skeleton laid out before them. The bones, while no longer connected, were still arranged in the proper shape, with only a few stray pieces rolling from their places. “I’m guessing you can’t work your magic anymore,” Beverly joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Will looked down at the bones. “I doubt it.”

“I guess we’ll have to rely on good old-fashioned forensics,” Price chimed in, voice as chipper as always. “We’re still doing more in-depth testing, but the flesh appears to have been dissolved off the bones with an acid, as opposed to the ever reliable lye.”

Across the table, Will groaned, and tilted his head back towards the ceiling. “Gardenias grow in acidic soil,” he muttered. “The flowers are the gift, and the victim is no better than the dirt they grow in.”

“Why this specific person?” Zeller wondered aloud. “If the victim is just compost, it seems like it shouldn’t matter who he kills.”

“Maybe the person the Ripper is courting knows her?” Jack suggested, and Will did his best not to wince about how he did not hesitate to call it ‘courting’.

“Gardenias are often given to old lovers,” Will said, brow furrowed. “Someone the giver has a history with. It could be that the target is someone she had taken pictures of, and the gift was eliminating an old problem.”

“That would mean the target is somewhere in her post history!” Beverly jumped up, invigorated. “There’s a lot to go through but it’s the first solid lead we’ve gotten.”

“You two go look into that,” Jack ordered, straightening. “I’ll go talk to the people in computer forensics and see if they can gain access to her account, turn anything up that way. Let me know if you find anything.”

That was how they found themselves back in their co-opted research room, seated at computers, combing through an Instagram account. Will had started with the most recent posts and Beverly had jumped back to the beginning, intending for them to meet in the middle. They noted all the people who had clearly been photographed without being aware of it, making special note of the posts that had gotten a lot of traction, potentially creating the greatest possible problem for the subject. He noticed that his own post was uncomfortably close to the top in terms of popularity, but at least there were others that had seen more widespread attention. 

“So how do you think this affects your standing as the potential target?” Beverly suddenly asked, after they had been working in silence for a while. 

Will blinked. He had done much to turn Beverly away from that particular theory, more out of a desire to reassure her than any actual belief that it couldn’t possibly be him. “Well,” he began, rolling the question over in his mind. “I can’t say it didn’t cause me any trouble, but I don’t feel like having my photos posted was that horrific of an experience. Definitely not bad enough to warrant a revenge killing, so I think the odds are pretty low at this point.” He didn’t mention his true worry- that the message of the gardenias had nothing to do with the victim, and instead meant that the Ripper was courting someone he was already involved with, someone who simply did not recognize his nature. The thought upset him deeply, though he could not for the life of him place why.

“Hmm.” Beverly didn’t sound entirely convinced, but seemed to accept this information. “Well, when I ran into Jack earlier, he told me that the computer guys could tell that her cloud storage system had been accessed after her time of death, but they can’t get in yet. Can’t brute force it, so we’re really just waiting on the warrant to see if we’re doing all this work for nothing.”

“I doubt the Ripper would make such a basic mistake,” Will snorted. “Grunt work’s gonna save the day again.”

“Maybe he just couldn’t resist?” She shot him a grin. “Anyways, grunt work can wait until tomorrow.” Beverly leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms out above her head before spinning to face towards Will. “It’s getting late. We should call it a day.”

“You go,” Will said immediately. “I’ll keep looking.” His chair was forcefully rolled backwards, and when he looked up, he locked eyes with Beverly.

“You have to go home sometime,” she chastised, genuine concern in her eyes.

“I promise I will,” he lied. “I want to get through this as soon as possible. The faster we narrow down the potential targets, the faster we can get them out of harm’s way.”

Beverly sighed, defeated. “I’ll just keep feeding Winston,” she grumbled. “Please tell me you’ll at least sleep.”

“Of course,” and this time, Will was being honest. “Thank you.”

She shot him one last look and then left.

He worked late into the night, until he had gone through the entire archives of the social media account and pulled out everyone that fit their criteria. As much as he wanted to remove himself from the pool, he admitted that while chances seemed low, he could not discount it entirely. Even so, he mentally moved his file to the bottom of the pile, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he had done so partially because he thought others deserved the protection far more than himself.

It was very late at this point, past midnight, and Will found himself yawning. He did consider going into the dining hall and returning with a huge cup of coffee, but he had promised Hannibal he would try to take better care of himself, and instead went to his room full of whiteboards where he had set himself up a makeshift bed on a couch. He honestly could not remember if the couch had been there when he first took over the room or if he had dragged it in late one night in a delirious haze, but no one had come back for it either way, and he continued to use it. When he plugged in his phone he noticed he had a text from Hannibal.  _ Have you gone home? _ it read, and Will sighed.

Hannibal, after seeing firsthand how lost in his work Will could become, now checked up on Will at least once a day. He had a way of pressuring you into doing something by being progressively more polite and concerned, until you finally buckled under the weight and did whatever he asked just so you didn’t let him down. It didn’t work very well on Will, partly because he was aware of it, but mostly because he had been ignoring the concern of others for the better part of his life.  _ In a way, _ Will answered vaguely, because he could not bring himself to lie.

His phone, unsurprisingly, rang. “Will,” Hannibal greeted, though he sounded somewhat strained.

“I know,” Will answered immediately. “I just can’t let this sit when it’s getting so serious.”

“I had hoped you had learned the importance of proper rest from the last bout,” Hannibal admonished. “It will not aid you if you are spinning in circles from exhaustion.”

“It’s nothing complex,” Will replied. “It’s just sifting through data. I don’t need to be on the top of my game to do this.”

“Is it not?” Hannibal sounded genuinely surprised, and Will paused. That was… an unusual reaction, to say the least. He probably was just not expecting Will to be throwing himself away for such basic work. “Regardless, you should return home soon, for your own health.”

“I know,” Will repeated. “I will, once this dies down.”

They went back and forth like this for a while, until both of them simultaneously gave up and pretended they had come to a resolution. Will was not annoyed at Hannibal’s persistence, but the relentlessness was alien, and he didn’t quite agree with it. His work was important, quite literally saving lives. It felt wrong, to put his well being first when doing so could mean the death of others.

Something Hannibal had told him once, when they had had something closer to an argument about the subject, floated forward into his memory.  _ I don’t care about the lives you save, Will. I care about your life. _

He curled up on the hard couch, pulling the blankets closer around him, and tried to sleep.

In his dreams, he saw the shadowy figure. It stood in the room with him, watching but motionless, and he took the opportunity to take a closer look at what his subconscious had created for him. It was taller than him, feeling slightly longer than a human should be, it’s thin, bony arms ending in sharp talons. He picked up a hand and examined it, seeing no nail of any sort, simply a finger tapering off into a knife-sharp point. The legs bent the wrong way, and when he crouched to follow their curve, he noticed for the first time that instead of feet, the creature had hooves. Finally, he rose, traced his fingers along the huge branching antlers sprouting from the thing’s skull. They were equally sharp, and could easily gut someone if the creature charged at them.

It was a strange figure. When Will had been younger, he had often dreamt of a huge black stag with feathers instead of hair, and he could only assume this was some corruption of it, fueled by his nightmares and hallucinations. Strangely, he was not afraid of it, and felt closer to reassured when its presence was nearby. It always seemed to assist him, show him the path forward, steer him in the right direction. “What are you?” he murmured, curling his hands around the antlers from the front of the creature, where he stood. “Are you my stag, or something else?”

The being moved now, bring up a terrible hand and placing the tip of a claw under Will’s chin, guiding his head back and exposing his neck. It leans forward, Will’s hands still tangled in it’s horns, and breathes deeply at his neck. After several moments, it pulls back, and when Will lowers his gaze to look at it, it has an expectant look on its face. He furrows his brow. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me,” he says slowly. “I’m sorry.”

It looks almost sad, now, and shakes its head. He releases the antlers, unsure if it was attempting to shake him off or simply showing its disapproval. Two hands curl under Will’s thighs and Will lets out a gasp of surprise when it lifts him, his own hands shooting forward to cling to its shoulders for balance. The figure carries him back over to his couch, effortlessly swinging Will around until he is parallel to the piece of furniture and laying him back down upon it. The care with which it tucks the blankets back around him is almost familial, and it places a warm hand over his eyes, encouraging him to sleep.

Will wakes up, eyes on the dark ceiling. When he checks his phone he sees that only an hour has passed, but no matter what he does, he does not fall asleep again for the rest of the night.

“You look like shit,” is the first thing Beverly says to him when she arrives in the morning.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Will grunts, clutching a large cup of coffee like a lifeline. “I finished combing through her Instagram.”

“Time to cull the herd,” Beverly grins, but it’s not genuine. She’s worried, but she’s trying to hide it and distract him instead. Normally, it works despite Will being aware of the intention, but now he can only think of the black horned being, trying desperately to send him a message he cannot comprehend.

They spent the morning researching the people Will had scrawled down on his list. All of them had to have been doxxed, since it was a basic requirement to make the kill make sense, but with only a full name to go off of, it was still a difficult task. Will was running them through various FBI and police databases, seeing if anything came through that way, while Beverly was doing broader internet searches, trying to locate social media accounts and build a profile. Around lunch time, they halted briefly to get food, and while they ate they assembled the separate pieces of the profiles they had built.

Now came the hard part- climbing inside the Ripper’s head to try and figure out who he would likely be after.

“Do you think he’d go for the younger ones?” Beverly began with the easiest factor to examine, and the one that would have the strongest impact. 

“I think it’s… less likely,” Will answered, eyes roaming over the papers spread on the tables before them. “Only because he would value refinement. It’s not impossible that a younger person could fit the bill, but I think it’s more likely that the person is, at the youngest, in their late twenties.”

“Values refinement, hmm?” Beverly leaned over, grabbed the piece of paper that simply said ‘Will’ and put it on the far end, where the least likely candidates would rest.

Will glared at Beverly, who cracked a grin, but did not move his paper. They quickly organized the profiles by the person’s age before looking closer, starting with the oldest and working backwards.

“He’s definitely what I would call refined,” Beverly began, holding up a profile of a handsome man in his sixties, “but my exhaustive research has revealed that he’s also a massive douchebag.”

“The Ripper abhors rudeness,” Will said. “He’s more likely to be another victim than the target.”

She put the paper on the far axis, and WIll watched as she picked up his and moved it further away, nearly falling off the table. “It’d be super rude if you hit me,” she said hurriedly, taking in the dark look on Will’s face.

“Just take me off the table,” he said through gritted teeth. “We can argue about where I lie at the end.”

It did not take long to set the baseline in this way, and then they set about fine-tuning it. “What else does the Ripper care about?”

“Aesthetics and artistry,” Will answered. “He seems to be particularly drawn to ancient Greek and Roman themes.”

“Classical beauties, then?” The papers got shuffled around, people with curly hair and other relevant features moving forward.

“Do you think if they fit the mold well enough he’d overlook certain behaviors?”

Will thought for a moment. “I doubt it,” he finally said. “He kills people just for being annoying. I doubt he’d devote himself to someone just because they looked the part.”

More criteria passed, until finally they were somewhat satisfied with the line they had created. Beverly held up the final profile, the paper that only said ‘Will’, and slapped it very close to the label of ‘most likely’.

“Beverly-” Will started, but she cut him off.

“Okay, I know you keep saying it isn’t you, but you fit almost all the things we just decided were important. Older relative to the rest, intelligent, likely to have been sculpted out of marble in ancient Greece, and I’m still not letting go of the fact that it makes the most sense for him to be sending messages to someone who will easily see them.”

“The Ripper would know his target’s personality well,” Will argued. “He’d probably gut me in seconds if he ever actually spoke to me.”

“You know, the Ripper is still a human,” Beverly countered. “If we’re operating under the assumption that he’s genuinely in love with his target, you need to take love itself into consideration.”

Will’s mouth opened and closed. “I’m not entirely sure what you mean.”

“You can’t control who you fall in love with, Will. It changes the way you look at things.” Beverly sighed, and leaned back in her chair. “Maybe he just finds your rudeness charming.”

Slowly, Will picked up his own profile and moved it back, closer to the center. “I would have been able to tell if the messages were for me,” he said quietly, because he wanted to believe it was true.

“If you say so,” Beverly snorted, not entirely convinced but trusting enough to let the matter slide. 

“Have we heard back from the computer forensics department yet?” Will changed subjects, wanting to steer this away from him as quickly as possible.

“Jack told me we’re still waiting on the warrant.” Beverly straightened back up in her chair. “With how hard he’s leaning on the courts, we’ll probably have it soon.”

“Hopefully this was all for nothing,” Will muttered. “Some hard proof would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.”

“Nothing to do now but wait,” Beverly added. “I’ll bring this information to Jack, so please go home.”

“I can help,” Will replied.

“Will, every day I go feed Winston, he looks a little bit sadder. Go home and spend time with your dog before I take him home myself.”

Even Will had to admit that there wasn’t much more he could do here, until they accessed the photos or got their work cleared by Jack. Hannibal would be happy that he had finally gone home. “I guess a bed would be nice,” he conceded, thinking of the stiff couch he had been sleeping on. 

“Attaboy,” Beverly laughed, slapping the back of his chair. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The second Will arrived home Winston was sprinting out to meet him, tail wagging furiously, the normally well behaved dog jumping up to reach Will’s face. “I’m sorry, bud,” Will murmured, the guilt filling him rapidly as he realized just how long it had been since he had been home. His garden was empty, the last of the vegetables harvested weeks ago, the dead plant matter tilled into the soil for the following year. Since he had no other obligations, he spent extra time playing with his dog, only going inside when the sun had set and he could no longer see through the darkness.

It had been some time since he had seen Hannibal, as well. They had not had time to meet since the gallery, though they spoke every day.  _ Beverly chased me home, _ he texted, sitting in his bed.  _ You were right, the bed is much nicer than the couch. _

_ Of course it is, _ came the prompt response.  _ I imagine Winston has missed you greatly. _

_ Only Winston?  _ Will teased, laughing at the response when it came.

_ We shall meet soon,  _ Hannibal promised.  _ Now go to sleep and stop tempting me, my terrible boy. _

Will did sleep, like the dead, with Winston curled up beside him.

His phone woke him, just after dawn. “Graham,” he groaned, rolling over as he answered it.

It was Jack. “Will, I need you to remain calm.”

The words woke him up in a flash. He sat up in bed, finding himself alone, Winston nowhere to be found. “There are agents en route,” Jack continued, and Will stepped carefully out of his bed. “Don’t leave the room you’re in, and secure it if you can.”

Will left his room. Everything was eerily silent, and he could not hear any suggestion of another living being inside his house, human or otherwise. Jack was saying something more, but it was simply noise, Will’s senses on high alert as he tiptoed through his house, eventually making his way down the stairs, where he saw it. 

A rose, stood in a glass domed case, the petals shaped from skin and the stem of bone. He cleared the rest of his house, finding Winston scratching at the back door, the doggy door blocked off to keep him outside. “He’s gone, Jack,” Will said eventually, shaking. “But he left a gift behind.”

He hangs up the phone, and closes his eyes.

He is in his familiar room, he knows it is the same, but the walls, ceiling and floors are made of flesh. He is not alone, he sees the familiar dark figure, it’s antlers large enough that they scrape against the ceiling, cutting large furrows into the flesh and causing blood to splash down into the room and race towards the grate. Its back is to Will, slightly hunched over, arm outstretched towards the wall.

As Will approaches it, it straightens, the sharp points of its horns plunging deeper within the fleshy ceiling. It turns to face him, ripping deep circles above, and Will winces, swearing he can hear the room scream as it is injured. The figure is holding something in its hands, a stem of bone, and petals are beginning to form at the tip. A long claw of the creature’s is tipped with blood, and Will looks past it, and sees patches of skin missing on the wall behind it.

“Why are you making it out of my room?” Will asks, head cocked.

The creature stomps its hooves in irritation. It extending its free arm, placing its hand gently on Will’s chest, before removing it and placing it on its own. “I guess it is ‘our’ room,” Will laughs, “since you gave it to me.”

Whatever is with him seems satisfied and turns back to the wall to continue its work, a fresh wave of blood dripping down onto it as it reopens the wounds on the ceiling. Will sits next to it, watches it work, watches as the beautiful rose takes shape and blossoms out, until it is at last complete.

It crouches to become level with Will. Some blood is still falling from the ceiling and it holds the flower under the droplets, letting them soak in and turn the rose a deep, shining red. It holds the flower out to Will, and he accepts it. “It’s beautiful,” he whispers, awestruck. The creature reaches out, places a large hand along his jaw, and Will feels his eyes sting with tears. “Thank you.” He brings it to his nose and inhales, the rich scent of iron filling his head.

They found him sitting at the table on a backwards chair, arms crossed on the back, chin resting on top. His eyes were only on the rose, and they did not leave, regardless of who spoke to him. 

It was only Jack, at first, and for that Will was somewhat thankful. Other agents combed throughout his home, searching for any sign of the intruder, but Will knew they would find nothing. “I’m assuming the pictures taken were mine,” Will murmured, gaze unmoving. “I don’t know how I slept through it.”

“You were exhausted,” Jack pointed out, “and it’s better that you did.”

The petals of the rose were all different shades, some clearly older than the others. “They’re probably all from different people,” Will continued, “the petals. I’d say the stem is important but he probably just wanted to make it look nice.”

“Will, we should get you out of here,” Jack tried, but Will ignored him.

“It’s the ninth gift, Jack. Do you know what nine roses mean?”

“We need to take you somewhere safe-”

“I want to be with you forever.”

Will felt Jack’s sharp gaze on him, but then Beverly was storming into the house, and his gaze was broken when she hugged him so tightly his entire body shifted. “Will, fuck,” she gasped, and Will felt her distress like knives in his brain. “I’m never asking you to give an opinion about yourself again.”

“I’m fine,” Will said distantly. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Beverly, is there somewhere he can go?” Jack’s body was tense, but he remained as calm as he could. “I don’t feel comfortable putting him in a hotel right now, and we can send agents with him.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “I’ll ask Hannibal. Will, do you mind if I watch Winston for you?”

He nodded slowly. Everything looked sort of faded, hazy, and he was having trouble focusing. The flower was the only thing that stood out from the rest, crystal clear. “Go pack him a bag,” Jack said, “and I’ll contact Lecter.” Beverly went to do just that.

“Will, I need to take you outside,” Jack said slowly, noticing the way Will’s eyes had gone unfocused.

“No,” Will whispered, locking eyes with the rose once more.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said no,” Will repeated, louder now. 

Jack cursed. “Get him out of here,” he barked, and several agents had to nearly drag Will away as he struggled.

Once he had been escorted outside and deposited on the porch, Will stopped trying to get back to the flower. “Does he need to see a doctor?” he heard whispered behind him, followed by a dismissal from Jack. Winston sat beside him, head in his lap, and he idly stroked the dog’s fur until Beverly came and sat beside him. They waited like that, silent, until Hannibal arrived, leaving with a suitcase full of clothes, an FBI escort, and the shards of what was left of Will.

Will ate, bathed, and slept, but only because Hannibal asked him to. He went through the motions like the husk of a man, barely speaking, responding mostly to Hannibal’s touch instead of his words. Hannibal was patient with him, leading him around with soft touches and gestures. Anywhere he left the man Will would simply stare into space, lost somewhere deep inside of himself.

Hannibal was patient, but it was not limitless. “Will,” he whispered to the other man, three days into this mockery of an existence. “Come back to me. You must face the truth and return to yourself.”

In the depths of his self-made prison, Will listened. He saw the tattered cords of the alarms he had silence so long ago and leaned down to reconnect them. The sounds he heard once he had done so nearly deafened him, and the dark figure watched him with a smile.

When Hannibal found him that evening, he was standing in the kitchen, eyes clear. High up in the glass cabinets he was gazing at the formerly shattered teacups he recognized from the night of the dinner party. They had been reformed, the cracks and chips lined with gold.

“The technique is called kintsugi,” Hannibal explained, taking his place next to Will. “The teacup has been shattered, and we cannot turn back the clock to change that, but the shards can be reborn as art.”

“I’ve lied to you,” Will said, almost out of nowhere. “I need to rectify that.”

“How so?”

“When I told you about New Orleans, I told you the version that’s on record.” Will finally turned now, looking Hannibal in the eyes for the first time in weeks. “But that’s not what actually happened.”

Hannibal’s eyes were gleaming. “Tell me, Will.”

“I was stabbed, and he did kill the rookie with me. When I saw what he had done, I- I never touched my gun. I pulled the knife out of my shoulder and stabbed him to death.” He closed his eyes, and the scene unfolded before him, a sight he had seen many times over. The blood rushing out of the body, the twitching and gurgling of a dying man, the sheer exhilaration he had felt the moment he saw the man’s life leave his eyes, and the twinge of disappointment that it had ended so soon. The sickening snap the spine had made as the vertebrae separated and the torso slid away from the lower half of the body. Reaching for- “I didn’t stop, once he died. My boss had to pull me off what was left of his body.”

The gaze he felt was boring into him, sharp and piercing. “What else, Will,” Hannibal encouraged, seeing that there was more bubbling just beneath the surface.

“I-” The words caught in his throat, choked back by a sharp taste of iron, eyelids fluttering. “I ate-” A hand covered Will’s eyes, soothing, and a low rumble erupted unbidden from Hannibal’s throat. “I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Who knows?” Hannibal murmured.

Will took a deep shuddering breath, fighting for stability. “My- my supervisor on the force, w-who found me and kept the other cops out, helped me. Helped me stage the scene differently. H-he never looked me in the eyes again.” His words became more solid as he went on, focusing on the feeling of the hand darkening his vision. “There’s... probably a coroner who worked with the body somewhere, noticed… parts... missing. Beverly, I told her one night when I got really drunk. Alana, who was my therapist for a long time afterwards, and again when. Hobbs. He pulled a similar knife on me and I unloaded a clip into him. They only know about the, the stabbing. Jack-” Will’s voice cracked here, but Hannibal moved his hand on the small of his back, and he swallowed heavily. “Jack sealed the files, so no one else could learn. Some of his superiors probably know, when he had to argue why I should work to him.” Will blinked, long and slow, and looked back to Hannibal. “And now you.”

“Why have you chosen to tell me, now?” Hannibal had leaned in, inches away from Will’s face. They spoke in hushed tones.

Suddenly, Will felt free and powerful, all hesitation or horror seeming pathetic in the face of what had grown between them. “Because you are the only one who would understand how incredible it feels, to feel the life leave someone’s body. The warm rush of blood, and the smell of copper in the air.” Will leaned in, lips against Hannibal’s ear, and whispered “Thank you for the flowers.”

He felt the air rush by him as Hannibal lunged, but Will had been expecting it, and slipped out of Hannibal’s grip just in time. The other man’s eyes were wild, almost feral, and for the first time Will felt like the truly  _ saw _ Hannibal.

He also didn’t want to ruin his back again, but he doubted Hannibal would listen if he asked. The best solution was to lure the other man away, play to his predator instinct, and so Will laughed, and bolted.

A part of him was screaming that this was idiotic, that Hannibal could misinterpret and end this scenario in a very different way, but it was drowned out by the sheer joy coursing through him. He was very familiar with Hannibal’s house by now and found the stairs easily, taking them two at a time, Hannibal’s thundering footsteps just behind him. Will only made it partway down the hall when Hannibal caught him and he was thrown over the older man’s shoulders with an almost terrifying ease. A broad hand swatted at his ass admonishingly, only causing Will to laugh again, but Hannibal seemed to get the general message and strode towards the door to the master bedroom.

Will was dumped onto the bed unceremoniously. He twisted, intending to push himself upright, but Hannibal climbed on top of him swiftly and pinned his shoulders back down onto the duvet, knees braced on either side of his thighs. His strength was overwhelming, allowing for no unwanted movement from the younger man, and Will shivered. “This is how I saw it,” Will gasped, bucking up, trying to throw Hannibal off. “When you peeled the flesh from her face, you knelt on her, like this.”

“Were you kneeling, in New Orleans?” Hannibal’s voice was rough, and be brought his teeth to Will’s neck.

“No,” Will answered, because he hadn’t been. The man had been shocked, maybe even horrified when Will had pulled out the knife and approached him, and had barely resisted when the knife pierced his stomach. But it wasn’t because there was no struggle to suppress. “If I had knelt I wouldn’t have been able to reach the rest of him.”

Hannibal bit down, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to hurt. “Vicious boy,” he exhaled. “Vicious, wonderous boy.” He pulled Will’s shirt apart, easily yanking out the buttons, and now his teeth met shoulder, just above the scar. This time, when he bit, blood welled up from the wound, and Will bucked beneath him once more.

“Fuck,” Will hissed, biting back the urge to scream. It hurt, not as much as being stabbed, but in a way he relished. Hannibal reared back, Will’s blood painting his mouth. “How does it taste, to you?” he asks, desperate to know if the answer would be the same for Hannibal as it had been for him. “Someone else’s blood.”

Hannibal leans down now, kisses Will, lets the other man lick himself off of his teeth and lips. “Do you still trust me, Will?” he asks, whisper quiet, when they have parted once more.

“Always,” Will breathes, feeling as if he has been robbed of air. In response, Hannibal removes his sweater and tosses it to the side, revealing a knife tucked into the waistband of his pants. Will’s eyes are locked onto it as it is drawn out, almost hypnotized.

He pulls back, bringing his free hand to hover just above Will’s mouth, and brings the blade of the knife to his palm. “Open your mouth,” he orders, and Will obeys. The knife cuts into his palm, slicing across the skin, and he balls his hand into a fist, squeezing the blood out and into Will’s mouth below.

It tastes, Will could swear, like a sweet wine, though he knows that is impossible. Most of all, it tastes like a victory. His hands fly up, grasping Hannibal’s injured fist, uncurling the fingers and licking them clean. He swipes his tongue along the length of the cut and then bites lightly at the edge of the other man’s hand.

This, it seems, is where Hannibal’s patience once more ends, as Will finds himself flipped onto his stomach, and feels the sting of the knife along his legs as Hannibal messily cuts through the man’s pants. Bare from the waist down, a strong arm hauls Will up to his knees, but when he moves to lift up his front half to match a hand on his neck forces him back down onto the bed. “Hannibal, fuck-” is all he gets out before something hot and thick pushes inside of him, slamming in deep. “ _ Shit, _ ” he hisses, through gritted teeth. It stings, unexpected, but Hannibal had found lube somewhere, and the sensation of being full overpowers the discomfort.

Hannibal spares him no mercy, and Will quickly has to brace himself against the headboard so his head does not knock against it with every powerful thrust. It would be easier if he could raise the rest of his body and hold the top of the headboard but Hannibal does not allow him to, and so his hands scrabble uselessly on the wood until he is able to rest his forearms across it and secure himself in that manner. He wants to speak, though he’s not sure if it’s to encourage the other man or ask him to slow down, but the wind is knocked out of him with every movement, and all that escapes him are gasps and breathy moans. 

It’s relentless, all of the things Hannibal has been keeping bottled up pouring out of him and into Will. Hannibal is usually full of words of praise and encouragement when they fuck, but he is as silent as Will, the only sounds being the slapping on skin on skin and grunts of exertion. Will tries to shift his hips, change the angle, and Hannibal retaliates by pressing down hard on the bite mark on his shoulder, finally drawing a strangled scream out of the man beneath him. He then shifts the other man’s hips for him, tilting him the way he had intended to tilt himself.  _ You may have whatever you desire,  _ the motion says,  _ but only if I am the one to give it to you. _

An astonishing display of possessiveness, a feeling so intense that Will knows Hannibal will sooner kill them both than let Will leave, if it ever came to that. Will could have made a hundred other decisions, but he chose to willingly lay with the monster, and he wouldn’t take back that decision for the world.

He’s thinking of how Hannibal would do it when he comes, Hannibal right behind him.

Hannibal is the one to carry them both into the bathroom, clean them, and bandage their wounds. Will is amazed he is even capable of it, as he himself feels about ready to pass out at any moment, after only one round. “The rose,” he eventually gets out, only barely succeeding in stopping the way the words want to slur. “When they test the petals, who will they find?”

They are laying in the tub, Hannibal’s fingers massaging through Will’s hair as he washes it. “Other than the obvious?” Will makes a noise of agreement. “The work of Il Monstro, among many others. Close your eyes.” He uses the handheld showerhead to rinse the soap out of Will’s curls but his hands return even after it is clean, simply combing through the tangles now. “A fair number of missing persons, should they search that deeply, and a number they will simply never identify. There are many from my early days which could sadly not be included, as I did not yet possess the foresight I now do.”

“Wait.” Will bats Hannibal’s hands out of his hair, and  _ now  _ he is fully awake. He spins around in the large tub, facing Hannibal. “It represents your life’s work? Hannibal, are you- are you saying that you’ll  _ stop? _ ”

“Is that not what you desire?” Hannibal’s gaze is no longer closed and guarded, and Will sees no hint of deception or jest inside. “My hobby does not align with your career, though I admit I was not aware of your… adventurous palate, until now.”

Will is struck speechless. He knows, as well as he knows his own feelings, how much Hannibal truly enjoys what he does, how much time he spent honing his skills to get to the level where he now resides. To offer to stop, just for his own sake, was unthinkable.

But, then again, maybe he only offered because he knew what Will’s answer would be, and it is because of this that Will takes a different approach.

“You’ve sort of fucked that up though, haven’t you?”

“I beg your pardon?” Hannibal looks somewhat taken aback, clearly having been expecting a more straightforward answer.

“They know that I’m the one the messages are for, and I promise one of them will realize what the rose means eventually. If I stay in a relationship with you and all the killing stops, it’s going to be painfully obvious what’s going on.” He pressed a finger into Hannibal’s chest, through the thick thatch of hair. “That can’t have been your original goal.”

“I… admit that the rose was originally intended for your eyes only.” He looked, of all things, sheepish.

“Wait.” Will thought back to Beverly’s joke, realization dawning that it may have been the truth after all. “Did you really fuck up this grand plan of yours just because you wanted the original files of those photos of me?”

Hannibal’s face said it all. “She captured the spirit of photography,” he sniffed, trying to salvage the situation. “There were a great many photos of each subject, taken to ensure the right shot would not escape.”

“You  _ moron _ ,” Will laughed, and when Hannibal’s mouth twitched down in irritation, he pressed a soothing kiss to his temple. “We’ll figure it out.”

“I am confident that we will.”

A thought came to Will, something that had been floating around at the back of his mind but suddenly lunged forwards, clear as day. “What would they find if they tested your dirt?”

Hannibal paused, eyes briefly flicking away from Will’s piercing gaze. “Unless they chose one of several highly specific areas, normal soil.”

It was a good a confirmation as any. “And if they tested mine?” 

At that, Hannibal actually looked somewhat offended. “I have done nothing to your gardens, Will. I would not dare to touch them.”

Will laughed once more, high and light. The sound made Hannibal smile, and his hands tighten where they had settled on Will’s hips. “You can’t blame me for asking, all things considered.”

“I cannot,” Hannibal agreed. “Let us sleep. We are both tired, and should rest.”

Will did not move. “You were worried. About how I would react.”

“I can predict everyone but you,” Hannibal admitted. “But that is something that I love about you.”

Above him, Will went still. He knew, had known for a while, both from the man’s actions and the messages he wrote in blood, but hearing it directly from the other man’s mouth was a different thing entirely. He smiled. “I love you too,” he answered, kissing the other man softly. “Now let’s go to the bed.”

That night, Will dreamt, instead of abstract visions of blood, of a future. It would begin with Hannibal calling Jack in a panic, bleeding from a blow to the back of the head, saying Will had been abducted. The FBI would be mobilized, but it would be days before they found him, Hannibal playing the part of a hysterically worried lover with astonishing accuracy. He would be in a basement or some other sort of makeshift prison, alone with the corpse of a man who fit the profile of the Ripper, shaking and covered in blood, restraints broken. Jack would be too concerned about Will’s injuries to think too hard about the defensive wounds on the body, his mind explaining them away as a desperate attempt at self-preservation. He would be in the hospital for a while, refuse Alana’s offer, before finally being released back into Hannibal’s arms.

It would have been deeply traumatizing for all involved. Hannibal and Will would both quit their jobs, retire early, and move out of the country, somewhere far enough away that word would not travel back to Jack unless they wanted it to. Maybe even a castle, crumbling deep in the woods of Lithuania, some land cleared to make room for a beautiful, sprawling garden.

Will woke, curled around Hannibal’s back, legs tangled. He sat up and jostled the man, ignoring the soft noises of protest he made. “Wake up,” he whispered. Hannibal eventually roused, rolling partially onto his back to meet Will’s eyes. “I finally have an idea,” Will grinned, “and I think you’re going to like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Atë is a Greek goddess of mischief, ruin, delusion and folly. It can also simply be a word, meaning an action the hero takes that inevitably leads to their own undoing.
> 
> The rose was... it would be wrong to say it was the seed of the entire story, but it was the first concrete idea I had past a rough outline, so it ended up being the most important part. I really enjoyed writing this, so I hope people enjoyed reading it!


End file.
